NEWTON CAMPUS DIVISION OF BOSTON COLLEGE LiBRARffiS CHESTNUT HILL, MASi Newton College o*f S .cred Heart 885 Cv-ntre Street JNfewton, Massachusetts 02 1 59 I LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF SCOTLAND 0 ■WHiam Blackwood Sc SonsT.ai-nburgliScLandon WIILILIAM BILACKWiDOID) & S©KS, "TCHiam Blackwood &, SoES.Edinbxirgh&Lcindoii. ©IF THE WIILILIAM miLACKW®©]!!) & SfflHg, LIVES OP THE QUEENS OF SCOTLAND^ AND ENGLISH PEINCESSES CONNECTED WITH THE REGAL SUCCESSION OF GREAT BRITAIN BY ^gnes ^tricitlatiti AUTHOR OF "LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND" The treasures of antiquity laid up In old historic rolls I opened."— Bbaumonx. VOL. VII. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLVIII The. Rialii of Translation is rtHrved. -897 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY CHESTNUT HiLL, MA 02167 1 a ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE SEVENTH VOLUME FRONTISPIECE— MARY QUEEN OP SCOTS. Her latest Portrait, from the original in the possession of the Scotch College at Blairs. (See Page 494.) VIGNETTE— QUEEN MARY ON THE SCAFFOLD BLESSING HER LADIES. (See Page 491.) WOODCUT — SIGNET - RING, found among the Ruins of Fotheringhay, with the Monogram of Henry and Mary Stuart, &c. (See Page 475.) THE QUEENS OE SCOTLAND MAEY STUAET CHAPTER L. SUMMARY. Life of Mary Stuart — Continued. Secret nature of her contract with Norfolk — She sends him her miniature — Leonard Dacre confers with her on the leads of Wingfield Manor-house — Offers to contrive her escape — Favourable opportunity for the enterprise — She consults Norfolk — He forbids it— His jealousy of Dacre — Mary mediates between them — Spy in the household — Plans for Mary's escape— Popular feeling in her favour — Treacherous dealings of the Regent Moray — Mary commissions Lord Boyd to obtain her release from Bothwell — Scotch rebel lords oppose it — Her engagement to Norfolk betrayed to Elizabeth — -His pre- varications — Moray's fresh attempts to defame Mary — Absurd con- fessions^ published in Nicholas Hubert's name — Mary falls sick — Leicester's perfidy to Norfolk — -Intrigues against Mary and Norfolk — Vindictive proceedings of Elizabeth — The Earl of Huntingdon appointed Mary's keeper — Mary in fear of her life — Her apartments and colFers searched — Her indignant complaints — Her servants reduced to half their numbers — Her letter of remonstrance to Elizabeth — Arrest of Norfolk — Mary's perilous position — Fresh projects for her escape — She will not abandon Norfolk — Secret correspondence carried on between them — His selfishness — Devotion of the Northern Earls to Mary — Tokens and messages exchanged between her and them— She advises them not to rise — She writes to Cecil — Her letter to Queen Elizabeflh. The contract between Mary and tlie Duke of Norfolk ^ was drawn up and executed without the knowledge of the English peers and privy councillors who had solicited her to become his wife. The measure was therefore rash and premature ; 1 See Vol. VI., Lives of the Queens of Scotland, p. 386. VQL. YII. A 2 MARY STUART. but Norfolk's jealousy having been excited by the rival suit of Don John of Austria, backed by the influence of the King of Spain and the Roman Catholic party, Mary considered it necessary to give him that assurance of the sincerity of her intentions. She sent him her miniature, set in a small tablet of gold, in return for the diamond which Lord Boyd delivered to her as the pledge of the troth which he plighted to her in Norfolk's name. It is doubtful whether the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, if ignorant of this engage- ment, could have been unconscious of the active correspon- dence between Mary and Norfolk that was carried on under their own eyes. One of the principal agents employed in the exchange of letters and tokens was Mr Cavendish, or, as he was commonly called, Candish, a relative of Lady Shrewsbury's third and favourite husband. Sir William Cavendish, the father of her children. The frequency of Mr Cavendish's visits, and his private conferences with the Queen of Scots, exciting observation, the Earl of Shrews- bury, knowing himself to be surrounded by spies, thought proper to prohibit him from coming to Wingfield Manor again, unless with letter or warrant from the Queen's Majesty or her Council. Elizabeth, in reply to Shrews- bury's announcement of his vigilant care, replied " that she approved of his pr^ciseness in regard to Candish, yet was content he should be used as before ; " ^ thus intimating that Cavendish, who was playing a double game, was secretly employed in her service. She had expressed previously equal surprise and displeasure on learning that Shrewsbury had admitted, not only his familiar friends and visitors, but divers strangers, to see the Qneen of Scots, and converse with her.^ This was perfectly true. Mary's presence- chamber hai- become the resort, both of the neighbouring gentry, whom curiosity or the romantic interest and sym- pathy her calamities and heroic spirit excited, had attracted, and of numbers of the ancient aristocracy from remote dis- tricts, as well as certain calculating worldlings, who came to ingratiate themselves with her whom the contingences of a day, or even of an hour, might make their sovereign. 1 Lodge, vol. i. p. 475. 2 ibid. p. 472. ;MARY STUART. 3 Among those whom the ties of near rehitionship and personal friendship with the Earl of Shrewsbury rendered a frequent visitor in the domestic circle of that nobleman, both at Tutburj Castle and Wingfield Manor-house, was his deformed Roman Catholic cousin, Leonard Dacre, gene- rally called " Dacre with the crooked back," the disap- pointed claimant of the barony of Dacre of Gilsland. Leonard Dacre was the second son of William Lord Dacre. His elder brother, Thomas Lord Dacre, died early in life, leaving a son of tender age, and three infant daughters. The widowed Lady Dacre married the Duke of Norfolk, whom she constituted at her death the guardian of her orphan children by Lord Dacre, and he betrothed her three daughters to his three sons by his previous marriages. The little Lord Dacre was unfortunately killed by a fall from a vaulting horse when only seven years old, and Noi'folk entered on the heritage in the name and behalf of the infant co-heiresses. Leonard Dacre put in a rival claim as the nearest male-heir ; but as it was a barony which descended to the female representatives, his claim was of course overmiled, and he became in consequence disaffected to the government of Queen Elizabeth, and a foe to Norfolk. He was one of the busiest Instruments in stirring up the Northern Eebelllon, having entered heart and soul into the intrigues of his cousin the Earl of Northumberland for the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic worship in England, by the elevation of Mary Stuart to the throne,^ as the consort of some foreign prince of their own faith — in a word, of Don John of Austria, whose brilliant talents and adventurous spirit qualified him to perform the part re- quired of the paladin who aspired to win and wed her. One day when the captive Queen was taking her melan- choly prison exercise on the leads of Wingfield Manor-house, Leonard Dacre seized an opportunity of joining her there ; and, obtaining a private conference, assured her of his devo- tion to her service, and offered to assist her in effecting her escape, not only from that strongly-guarded fortallce, but 1 Memorials of the Northern Rebellion, by Sir C. Sharp. Memorialf of the Howard Family, by Howard of Corby. Murdin. 4 MARY STUAET. from England, if she would confide herself to his direction. He then briefly explained to her that a plan, which could scarcely fall, had been arranged for her liberation between himself, the Earl of Northumberland, the Markinfields, and Christopher Norton.^ That he had, in consequence of the facilities which his relationship and intimacy with the Earl of Shrewsbury's family afforded, won over certain of the domestic servants at Wingfield to co-operate in the design, so that he should be able to get her out of the house with one of her ladies without difficulty' — horses were already provided that would be waiting for them to mount. The Earl of Northumberland had engaged, also, that twenty of his household band, with a relay of twenty spare horses, swift and sure, should be privately sent to a secret place of rendezvous, at a convenient distance, where they would meet her, if she had sufficient courage to adventure the enterprise.^ It was proposed for Mary to effect her escape in the dress of one of her ladies, Avho was willing to remain in her place, and undertook to delay the pursuit by personating her. The name of this faithful friend and devoted servant has not been recorded ; perhaps it was Mary Set on t Christopher Norton assigned love for her as the reason of his visits to Wingfield Manor-house.^ Nothing could be more favourable than that juncture for the execution of the project for Mary's liberation. The Earl of Shrewsbury was attacked with inflammation of the brain, followed by paralysis, the result, doubtless, of mental anxiety, caused by the difficulties of the onerous and irksome office which had been forced upon him. The Countess of Shrewsbury solicited permission to remove him to the baths of Buxton ; and after waiting more than a month in fruitless expectation of an answer, became at last reckless of every consideration but the distressing state of his health, and car- ried him off" with her to that invigorating spot, without tarry- ing longer for the tardy determination of Elizabeth and her Council, or their appointment of a suitable person to act as \ Murdin. ' Confessions of the Earl of Nortliumberlaud — . of the Northern Rebellion, by Sir C. Sharp. ■Appendix to Memorials 3 Ibid. MARY STUAET. 5 deputy-jailer to the royal captive in his absence.-"^ So that until the arrival of Sir Francis Knollys, who was sent to take charge of Mary when the report of the unauthorised departure of the Shrewsburys reached the Court, she was left only in the keeping of Captain Rede and his band — a circumstance that could not be expected to occur again ; and had this unfortunate Princess availed herself of it with the like energetic spirit she had manifested at Lochleven, her enfranchisement would in all probability have been achieved by Leonard Dacre and his confederates. That Mary hesitated now was from no lack of courage. Her unseasonable demurs proceeded from romantic notions of the duty and obedience to which she considered her affi- anced husband the Duke of Norfolk was entitled from her. She would give no answer to Leonard Dacre's proposition till she had communicated it to him, and ascertained his pleasure therein.^ Norfolk, suspecting that Dacre was play- ing a deep game, replied " that he could by no means approve of any practice for her escape, as he believed Leonard Dacre's purpose was to carry her out of the realm in order to deliver her to the Duke of Alva in Flanders, or to the King of Spain, in which case her mar- riage with Don John of Austria would follow as a matter of course."^ Mary suffered herself to be influenced by his decision, and put a decided negative on the tempting offer of Leonard Dacre and his confederates to break her bonds. She knew that the ultra Roman Catholic faction, of whom Leonard Dacre was the acting instrument, was secretly opposed to her marriage with Norfolk; and that if she threw herself into the arms of that party, not only must she resign him, but submit to go to all the lengths which their headlong zeal for the re-establishment of their faith in England would prescribe. Her conduct in this instance shows that she desired to owe her restoration to liberty and empire, and, above all, her recognition as the heiress of England, to the liberal re- formers, of whom Norfolk was accounted the head. Unfortu- 1 Lodge. 2 Murdin. 3 Ibid. 6 MAEY STUAET. natelj, the intrigues of the Earl of Northumberland for the Spanish marriage offended Norfolk, and alarmed many of the Protestant nobles who had previously been disposed to support her cause, but could not give her credit for pre- ferring a consort of the reformed faith to one of her own religion, supported by the power and wealth of the King of Spain and the influence of the Pope.-^ Her self-sacrificing refusal to avail herself of Leonard Dacre's proffered assist- ance to effect her escape from Wingfield Manor-house, ought to have convinced them of her sincerity. True to her peace-making disposition, Mary laboured much to effect a reconciliation between Norfolk and Leonard Dacre. Such was the confidence of the latter in her love of justice, that, although aware of her engagement to Nor- folk, he offered to submit the controversy between them to her arbitration, and promised to abide by it. Norfolk consented to assign a portion of the lands in dispute to Leonard, in consequence of her intercession.^ It was at this time one Captain Philip Stirley, from the garrison at Berwick, a chosen spy in the service of Queen Elizabeth, succeeded in worming himself into the confidence of Mary's friends and confederates in- that neighbourhood.^ From Christopher Norton, whom he beguiled by artful pro- fessions of zeal and sympathy in Mary's cause,he learned that they were prepared to enterprise her deliverance about three weeks before Queen Elizabeth concluded her progress ; but in consequence of a message from the Duke of Norfolk to the Earl of Westmoreland, it was prevented that time, which paralysed and disarranged all their measures, to the great indignation of Westmoreland, who, in confidential discourse with Stirley the next day in his garden at Raby Castle, expressed his contempt of his noble brother-in-law's timor- ous conduct in these words : " If the Duke of Norfolk had not sent that message, we had done well enough ; but he liath shown himself to be faint indeed ; " and after bestow- ing a curse on Norfolk, added, with great bitterness, " he ^ Sir C. Sharp's Memorials of the Northern Rebellion — Appendix. 2 Murdin, 51. ^ Memorials of the Northern Rebellion, by Sir C. Sharp. MARY STUART. 7 hatli been the undoing of us all by that message/' ^ West- moreland told Stirley " that there were three several devices for carrying off the Queen of Scots, but they were always hindered by Captain Eede, who, though he appeared to be well disposed towards it, was not the man he feigned him- self to be, always starting some objection. One day when it was discussed. Rede said, " How can it be done without a good number of horsemen ? " To which the Earl replied, " Leonard Dacre will assist with two hundred horsemen." Eede's demurs at that time broke it oS. Christopher Norton was told by Stirley, " that when Lady Livingston came to him from the Queen of Scots, and turned a diamond ring on her little finger,he was to give credit to what she said. The lady appeared as described, and asked if credit might be given to Captain Rede, for he had offered himself to the Queen of Scots. " In no wise trust him,'' was the reply. Lady Livingston brought back this answer to her royal mistress. Mary, with her usual imprudent frank- ness, told Captain Rede, who coolly observed, " that he knew she got her intelligence from Christopher Norton," 2 whose visits to Wingfield Manor, as the acknowledged lover of one of Mary's maids of honour, seem to have been openly paid, in the absence of the sick castellan and his vigilant dame at the baths of Buxton. Notwithstanding the seeds of dissension, which were springing up, on the subject of her marriage, between Roman Catholic and Protestant partisans, Mary's party continued to increase in England, where she had become an object of such general sympathy and popular interest, that the jealousy of her father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, was roused, and he could not refrain from observing to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton — little suspecting the change of feeling toward her in the breast of that time-serving diplo- matist — " that he marvelled that the Queen of Scots, a woman so ill thought of heretofore, now to find friends, and to be favoured in England and Scotland." Sir Nicholas cautiously replied : " Three things, in my opinion, move 1 Memorials of the Northern Kebellion, by Sir C. Sharp — Append. 362, 2 Ibid. 8 MAEY STUART. thereto. The first, her misery, whereof all men naturally take compassion ; the second, her entertainment of such as came to her ; and the third, the opinion that some had of her title to the succession, whereunto there were some exceptions, as there were to other titles, but as few to hers as to any." He prudently, however, united in the prayer, " that it might please God to preserve the Queen's Ma- jesty ; " and observed, " that neither of them would be glad to live under the Queen of Scots." Throckmorton was, nevertheless, deep in the confederacy for Mary's liberation, her restoration to the throne of Scotland, her recognition as the successor to Queen Elizabeth, and her marriage with his friend and patron the Duke of Norfolk — and this, as he had been behind the scenes in Scotland, he would scarcely have been had he not been fully satisfied of her innocence. It was by his pen, withal, that the secret correspondence with Lethington and the other members of the rebel faction, who now professed their desire of reinstating her in her regal office, was carried on. Powerful as the impression in Mary's favour was at this period in England, there was, of course, a strong party naturally and vehemently opposed to the prospect of a Roman Catholic successor to the Crown. At the head of this party were Cecil and Leicester's brother-in-law, the Earl of Huntingdon, who, as the great-grandson of George Duke of Clarence, pretended to have a better right to the royal succession than the posterity of the daughters of Henry VII. He was the patron and supporter of the section of the Reformation in England professing the prin- ciples of the Church of Geneva. Sampson, a popular divine of that school, to whom Huntingdon had given one of his livings, wrote a treatise tending to the defamation of Mary, opposing her title to the succession of the Crown of Eng- land — arguing, also, against the government of women. This treatise being very widely circulated, Lesley, Bishop of Ross, by the advice of the nobles who espoused Mary's cause, procured a copy and showed it to Queen Elizabeth, with a petition that the authors and setters forth of the same might be punished according to the resolution taken MAEY STUAET. 9 in the Parliament of 1565, on a previous treatise to the like effect, and required that it might be lawful for himself or any of her subjects to answer it.^ Elizabeth made a gra- cious reply, and was pleased to declare : " That as the Queen his mistress was most tender to her in blood of all others in the world, she would suffer nothing to be published in her realm that might hurt her honour, which was as dear to her as her own ; and as for title, she would never take it upon her conscience to hinder her any ways ; that perceiving in this last treatise she was touched herself, and all other princes, she would cause inquiry to be made for the au- thor, that he might be punished according to his deserts ; and, in the mean time, she was content that it should be answered, provided that, if printed, publication should not be made till the first copy was presented to her."^ Encouraged by this liberty, Lesley, with the counsel and aid of Mr Justice Brown, one of the most learned judges on the English bench, Mr Carryll and other eminent legal- ists, wrote and printed a most able reply to Sampson's attack on Mary's title, and presented it to Queen Elizabeth. " At which time," records he, " the Council said unto me it was very learnedly collected and set forth — so that all the law- yers in England could say no further in that matter, nor better to that effect." ^ An overpowering majority in the English Privy Council compelled Elizabeth not only to allow Mary's accredited deputy. Lord Boyd, to proceed to Scotland, but to make him the bearer of letters from herself to the Regent Moray and his Council, containing the following propositions in Mary's behalf, which she submitted to their choice : " First, that they should restore Queen Mary to her royal estate ; or, secondly, associate her in the sovereignty with her son — the administration to remain with the Earl of Moray till the Prince completed his seventeenth year ; or, lastly, that she might return to Scotland to live as a private person, with honourable treatment, and a suitable allowance."* There was too perfect an understanding between Elizabeth I Lesley's Negotiations, 65. ^ ibi^j. 66. s ibij. 67. * Camden ; Spottiswood ; Tytler. 10 MARY STUART. and Moray for her not to be aware, before she named these alternatives, that everj one would be rejected by the party to whom she affected to dictate them. Lord Boyd was accompanied back to Scotland by Master John Wood, who, acting as Moray^s deputy in the late nego- tiations for a general treaty of reconciliation, had succeeded in persuading Mary's councillors and friends that he and his principal were both sincerely desirous of atoning for their past treasons by bringing about an amicable counter- revolution in her favour. He crept into the confidence of Norfolk and the confederate nobles of Mary's party, and was intrusted by them with numerous letters on the sub- ject of her marriage and restoration to her realm.^ It would exceed the limits of this biography to enter into the details of the guileful part played by him and his master on this occasion. The great object of Lord Boyd's mission to Scotland was to deliver conciliatory letters from Mary to the Earl of Moray, and the Convention of Nobles at Perth, offering them her pardon and indemnity for their past conduct, if they would unite with her loyal subjects in ratifying the treaty for her liberation and restoration, which had been concluded with the English Council, and co-operate with her loyal subjects in appointing judges to try the legal- ity of her marriage with the Earl of Bothwell, in order that, if it were found illegal, sentence of nullity might be declared, and herself released from that wedlock, with liberty to marry where she pleased." If Mary's conduct in regard to Bothwell had been such as her adversaries represented, she would scarcely have demanded a process which could not fail to involve inquiries and discussions, such as no guilty woman would venture to provoke ; but she was not only willing, but anxious, that the circumstances under which her marriage with Both- well was contracted should be investigated by friend and foe. Far different was the deportment of the traitors who had pledged themselves to accomplish that unhallowed wedlock, Lesley's Negotiations. 2 Camden ; Spottiswood ; Tytler. MARY STUAET. 11 and after they had done so, taken advantage of their own wrong, by making it the pretext for dethroning and ca- lumniating their royal victim. The scrutiny she boldly cliallenged they shrank from, and shamelessly averted, by the taunting exclamation : " If the Queen, our sovereign's mother, wish to be quit of Bothwell, let her write to the King of Denmark to execute him for the murder of the late king, her husband ; that will be her most effectual divorce; and then she may marry whom she will."i What, it may be asked, would these men and their literary organ, Buchanan, have said of Mary, if, acting on their suggestion, she had so far departed from her duty as a sovereign, as to use her influence with a foreign prince to put one of her subjects to death for an offence for which he had been tried in the Justiciary Court of Scotland, before the Lords of Session, and acquitted by a jury of his peers — whose verdict, however partial and erroneous, had been confirmed by the three Estates of Scotland assembled in Parliament? — the very men who made this ribald requisition, withal, having entered into a bond with the said Bothwell, engaging themselves, under their own hands and seals, to maintain and defend him to the utmost of their power, and bear him harmless from any pursuit for the crime for which they now required his life to be taken, in a manner contrary to the forms of law and justice, by a despotic sentence in a foreign land. Lethington, who had promised Norfolk his powerful aid, rose to reply to the clamorous opposition that had been raised against the appointment of a commission to try the validity of the Queen's marriage with Bothwell : " It seemed passing strange," he sarcastically observed, " that they who had heretofore so strenuously insisted on the necessity of separating Bothwell from the Queen, even to making it a war-cry, should have changed their tone thus inconsistently." Here the Treasurer, Richardson, starting from his seat, cut him short by " calling the assembly to witness that the Secretary had spoken against the King's ^ Tytler's History of Scotland. 12 MARY STUART. authority, and therefore he and all who supported him were traitors, and should be dealt with as such." ^ The Conven- tion then broke up tumultuously, having negatived the propositions in the Queen of England's letters, as well as Mary's requisition for a divorce from Bothwell. They had taken too much pains to accomplish her marriage with him to allow of its nullification. It was observed that Lething- ton, the Earl of Atholl, and several others who had pre- viously leagued with the Earl of Moray, retreated to the Earl of Atholl's stronghold at Dunkeld. Moray had, with his usual duplicity, advocated the propriety of acceding to the treaty for the Queen's restoration, while he secretly exerted his influence to the utmost to have it nega- tived by his confederates in the Convention. Nevertheless Mary's cause was in the ascendant. More than two-thirds of the nobles of Scotland were avowedly on her side, including those of the highest rank and the most unsullied honour, Protestants as well as Roman Catholics ; and it was evident that a section from his own party was about to coalesce with them. Mary, it is true, was a captive in an English prison, but English sympathy was powerfully exerted on her behalf. Many of the great nobles of that realm had written letters to the Regent Moray by his secretary. Wood, assuring him of their atfection for his royal sister, and ex- horting him "to render himself the instrument of her restoration to the throne of Scotland, if he would escape the ruin that impended over her enemies." A majority in the English Privy Council had resolved to compel Eliza- beth to liberate and take effectual steps to reinstate her in her native sovereignty, and to recognise her as the next in succession to the Crown of England. The leading mem- bers in the association for this purpose, Norfolk, Pembroke, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Southampton, and Clinton, having assisted at the conferences in the Painted Chamber at Westminster, and seen and heard all that Moray and his confederates had brought forward for Mary's defamation, must surely be considered to have pronounced, by these strong demonstrations in her behalf, a satisfactory verdict 1 Tytler's History of Scotland. MARY STUART. 13 that she was not guilty of the crimes with which the usurpers of her government had charged her. Moray, under these circumstances, had played his game so finely that Norfolk was persuaded of the sincerity of his professions of friendship, and that his good intentions had i3een circumvented by others of the rebel faction ; while Eli- zabeth, fancying she had cause to suspect him, made Cecil write to Drury to express her surprise and displeasure at his practices for the marriage of the Queen of Scots with the Duke of Norfolk.^ Moray lost no time in satisfying her as to his real intentions, by despatching his confede- rate, Alexander Home, to explain the whole affair to her. Elizabeth, who was then at Farnham Castle, in Surrey, sent for Norfolk to dine with her ; regarded him with ominous glances during the meal, and when she rose from table significantly bade him " beware of his pillow I" ^ in sarcastic allusion to the expression he had used, to throw dust in her eyes, when she accused him of wishing to wed the Queen of Scots ; intimating also, for the royal gibe cut twofold, that he was putting his head in peril of the block. She did not confine herself to hints and parables, for meeting him in the gallery the next day, slie sharply upbraided him with the misdemeanour of presumptuously seeking to ally him- self in wedlock with the Queen of Scots without her leave or cognisance. With the same lack of truthfulness and moral courage as on the previous occasion, Norfolk de- nied the charge, protested that he had no affection for the Queen of Scots, nor any desire of making her his wife: spoke with contempt of the poverty of her realm, especially in its present miserable state of devastation ; and boastfully enlarging on his own wealth and terri- torial possessions, observed, "that his own estates in England were worth little less than the whole kingdom of Scotland. Marry," continued he, " when I am in mine own bowling- alley at Norwich, I feel myself no whit inferior to a prince." ^ Wiser had he been if he had, instead of again resorting to prevaricating subterfuges, availed himself of that opportu- nity of entering into an honest explanation with his offended 1 Murdin. Camden. 2 Ibid. 3 ibid. 14 MARY STUART, Sovereign, and explained to her, that the matrimonial treaty into which he had entered was for the security of her title, the preservation of the peace of her realm, and the safety of the Reformed Church from the perils of the Spanish alliance, which then courted Mary's acceptance. Mary had, indeed, only accepted him on condition of their engagement being approved by Elizabeth, and had exhorted him and the great nobles, by whom it was promoted, to take the earliest oppor- tunity of naming it to her. Leicester had undertaken to do this, but delayed, under one pretence or another, to perform his promise, till the matter became more difficult, on account of the suspicious mystery its concealment from her involved. Elizabeth had, therefore, great cause for displeasure, but she affected for the present to believe Norfolk's denial. ■'^ " I cannot fear all the practices of my enemies against me," wrote Mary to Norfolk, " so that you be still well persuaded of me and my constancy to you. But, alas ! I fear of Moray; you should never believe that he shall be too true : he will seek to hurt you all he can. But I think, if Leicester and Pembroke be your friends, they will find means to countermand his draughts." ^ The draughts on which Moray exercised his inventive talents after the breaking up of the Convention of Perth, were the fabrication of posthumous confessions of Nicholas Hubert, alias French Paris, for the purpose of endeavour- ing to substantiate the calumnious charges against Queen Mary, and to authenticate the silver-casket letters after he had hanged that wretched foreigner without a trial, and, under a frivolous accusation of necromancy, burned the Lord Lion, Sir William Stuart, to prevent the dis- closure of the revelations made by Hubert to him on the subject of Darnley's murder during their voyage from Norway. These double executions, to which allusion has been made in the previous volume,^ were perpetrated at 1 Camden ; Udall ; Jebb ; Tytler. 2 Mary dated this 15th, without specifying either the month or year. Labanoif (voLiii. p. 11) supposes it to be January 15th, 1570 ; but the allusions it contains prove that she must have written it before the perfidy of Leicester was made known to them both. ^ Vol. vi., p. 201-203. MAEY STUAET. 15 St Andrews on the 15th and 16th of August this year; and it now becomes necessary to call attention to the fol- lowing important facts, in refei'ence to the circumstances under which these alleged revelations of that wretched foreigner were produced. Moray had held the person of Nicholas Hubert in solitary confinement ever since Feb- ruary 1567-8, without so much as making the slightest allu- sion to him at the conferences at York and Westminster, when it behoved him to bring forward every possible proof that the silver-casket letters were written by Queen Mary, and sent by her to Bothwell ; and as Nicholas Hubert was alleged, in his so-called Confession, to have been the bearer of several of these letters, he would of course have been brought forward to depose on oath that he did so, and also to corroborate the accusations of the Queen's complicity in her husband's murder ; but no allusion was made to the ex- istence of so notable a witness by him or any other of the usurping faction. Hubert was alive, and capable of bearing testimony, when Mary's envoy, Lord Boyd, demanded, in the name of his royal mistress, a commission to be appointed by her nobles to inquire into the validity of her marriage with Bothwell, in order to her obtaining a release from that illegal and abhorrent wedlock. Now, it must be evident that if he, Hubert, were able to depose to a guilty and indecor- ous correspondence between the Queen and Bothwell, and to prove that her abduction was collusive, Moray would not have lost the opportunity of bringing such evidence of her infamy before the Convention of Nobles then assembled at Perth on the 25th of July. Instead of doing this, he re- moved Hubert from Edinburgh Castle to his own private residence at St Andrews, where he was entirely at his mercy, and, within three weeks after the breaking-up of the Con- vention at Perth, sent him to the gallows without any public process ; but after his execution, August 15, 1569, put forth the suspicious documents described as " The Con- fessions of Nicholas Hubert, called French Paris." The Countess of Lennox and Queen Elizabeth both v/rote to Moray, earnestly entreating him to suspend" the execu- tion of this notable prisoner, and send hira to England. So 16 MARY STUAET. eager, indeed, was Elizabeth to see and confer with him, that she sent three especial messengers, one after the other, with her orders to Moray for that purpose. He wrote a reverential replj, expressing his regret that the execution was over before her Majesty's letters arrived ; " but I trust," he shrewdly added, "his testimony, left, shall be found so authentic as the credit thereof shall not seem doubtful, neither to your Highness, neither to them who by nature has greatest cause to desire condign punishment for the said murder," ^ meaning the Earl and Countess of Lennox. But the fabrication was too coarse to impose on Elizabeth, ac- ceptable though its purport was to her. She demanded, as well she might, a legal verification of documents containing statements so extravagantly opposed to probability,produced, too, under circumstances of the most suspicious nature, with no other witnesses than Moray's literary organ, George Buch- anan, whohad made himself notorious during the Conferences by endeavouring to prejudice the English Commissioners by the presentation of MS. copies of his obscene political libel, The Detection ; the inventive Secretary, Mr John Wood ; and Robert Eamsay, the writer of the Declaration, " servant also to my Lord E-egent's Grace,"^ the said document bearing marks, alleged in the preamble to be those of Nicholas Hu- bert, who could neither write himself nor read writing. My Lord Regent having nothing in the shape of a legal verifica- tion to produce, resorted to the flimsy expedient of sending fresh transcripts, attested by AlexanderHay, notary, another of his secretaries, " to be the true declarations and depositions of Nicholas Hubert, called French Paris, made freely and 1 Laing's Appendix. 2 The original copy is preserved in the State Paper Office. Anderson, in his printed copy of tlie Confessions of French Paris, prudently omitted all mention of Buchanan as a party concerned in the production of this worthy supplement to the forged Love Letters, and his gross libel on his royal benefactress, in The Detection ; but the same tone pervades them all, and betrays the authorship of the same foul pen. Cecil employed his secretary, Dr Wilson, to translate these spurious com- positions into English, and caused them to be widely circulated ; but they made no impression at the time, unless perhaps on the minds of the credu- lous vulgar. Alexander Hay himself, in the catalogue of papers tending to MARY STUAET. 17 without constraint at St Andrewst)n the 9th and 10th days of August." The pretended Confessions of French Paris were aimed not merely against Queen Mary ; they were designed by the Regent to prepare the way for ridding himself of his expensive and troublesome pensioners Sir James Balfour and Lethington, by denouncing both as principals in the murder of Darnley. Lethington was wholly in Norfolk's interest, and the part he had taken at the Convention of Perth in advocating the treaty for the Queen's restoration and marriage with an English noble of the reformed faith, had excited Moray's vindictive wrath and determination to crush him. Dissembling his deadly purpose, he succeeded, by friendly messages, in luring him from his safe asylum at Dunkeld to a convention at Stirling, where he received him with a deceitful show of affection. Scarcely, however, had Lethington taken his seat at council, when a message was brought that Thomas Crawford, a gentleman in the service of the Earl of Lennox, requested audience on busi- ness of importance. On being admitted, he knelt, and, in the name of his master, demanded justice to be done on the Lord of Lethington and Sir James Balfour, for the murder of the late King Henry, father to the King their Sovereign. Great sensation was exhibited at the council-table ; but Lethington preserved his composure. He was surprised, he said, at such a charge from so mean a person, but professed his willingness to stand his trial whensoever it should be appointed. But Crawford, still kneeling, demanded that he should be taken into custody at once, and no bail accepted. He was therefore committed, and Moray, exulting in the success of his intrigue, arrested and con- tlie defamation of his unfortunate Sovereign, wliich, in his letter to John Knox, suggesting the expediency of her murder, he boasts are in his possession, and ready to be produced as proofs of her guilt, omits the Confessions of French Paris. It was not, indeed, till within the last sixty years that the Confessions of French Paris answered the purpose for which they were devised, by being quoted as evidence of Mary's guilty love for Bothwell, and her complicity in her husband's death. VOL. VII. B 18 MAEY STUAET. ducted him as a prisoner to Edinburgh, and lodged him in the house of Forrester, one of his creatures, till Morton should have made necessary arrangements for hurrying this dangerous confederate in their hidden works of darkness to the solitary fortress of Tantallon.^ From this peril Lethington was rescued by the promptitude of his friend, Kirkaldy of Grange, the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, who surrounded Forrester's house with a band of armed men, and presented a warrant, to which he had forged the Eegent Moray's signature, for the delivery of the prisoner into his hands, to be warded in Edinburgh Castle, which being obeyed, he carried him thither in triumph,^ where he was safe for a season from all pursuit. Kirkaldy, like Leth- ington, having seen cause to repent of his treason against Queen Mary, had engaged, heart and soul, in the confede- racy for her restoration, though he had so far dissembled, that this was his first demonstration against the Eegent. Moray, thus deprived of his prey, and outwitted by one of the leading men of his own faction, sent to request a con- ference with Kirkaldy at his own house ; but Kirkaldy, sus- pecting foul play was intended, refused to come, and thus escaped the ambush prepared for him by Morton, who had suborned four men to assassinate him at the entry of the Ee- gent's lodgings. Moray then offered to come to the Castle to confer with the Governor there ; " for," observes Sir James Melville, " he durst trust Kirkaldy, though Kirkaldy durst not trust h'lm."^ His object was to persuade Kirkaldy to give up Lethington, to take his trial for the murder of the late King. " Yea," replied Kirkaldy, " on condition the Earl of Morton and Archibald Douglas are immediately arrested, and proceeded against according to the forms of law and justice, as the principal authors and executors of that crime." He promised, however, that Lethington 1 Diurnal of Occurrents ; Chalmers' Life of Maitland, Lord of Lething- ton ; Melville's Menaoirs ; Letter of Moray to Cecil, Sept. 6th — State Paper Office MS. 2 Tytler's Hist. Scotland ; Sir James Melville's Memoirs ; Hunsdon to Cecil — State Paper Office MS. ; Chalmers' Memoir of Maitland of Lething- ton ; Sir Robert Melville's Deposition — Hopetoun MSS. ^ Sir James Melville's Memoirs. MAEY STUAET. 19 should appear in Court on any day that should be appointed for his trial. And he kept his word ; but Lethington's friends mustered so strongly in Edinburgh on that occasion, that although Morton had three thousand men-at-arms under his command at Dalkeith, in readiness to support the Regent, they did not venture to provoke the disclosures their old confederate was able to make. In fact, a public trial of any of the principals in Darnley's assassination, especially one whose hand had been with them in all their secret councils, was too dangerous. No one appeared against him, and he obtained a release from the accusation. Mary, meantime, had fallen sick at Wingfield, of the fever of hope deferred. The opportunity for effecting her escape had been lost through the jealousy and excessive caution of Norfolk. Elizabeth had despatched Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford,^ to Wingfield Manor, to keep a strict guard over her, and also to be a spy on the proceedings of the Earl of Shrewsbury. That noble- man had been sternly recalled to the duties of his unwelcome office by a reprimand for having presumed to withdraw himself to Buxton, in company with his wife. Shrewsbury pleaded in apology so piteous a catalogue of bodily maladies, that Elizabeth's anger was mollified, and she setft Dr Francis, one of her own physicians, to his aid. Shrews- bury, in his letter of thanks, mentions " that, as the Queen of Scots was ill, he had allowed Dr Francis to see and prescribe for her, which he hoped the Queen's Majesty (Elizabeth) would not disapprove." ^ Elizabeth's uneasiness at the intrigues in her Court and Council in Mary's behalf, and the interest excited by the fair captive, increased daily. She sometimes declared she wished her out of her realm. "You may hear plenti- fully of a marriage intended with the Queen of Scots ^ This nobleman, who was afterwards elevated to the rank of Earl of Essex, was the husband of Lattice Knollys, daughter of Sir Francis KnoUys, by Elizabeth's cousin-german Catharine Carey, the daughter of Mary Boleyn, a close family connection, which naturally bound him to the interest of his Sovereign. He was the father of the unfortunate Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. 2 State Paper OfQce MS.— Shrewsbury to Cecil. , 20 MARY STUART. here with us," writes Cecil to Nicholas White ; ^ " but^ howsoever you have it, I can assure you the Queen's Majesty at this present so misliketh as I know nobody dare deal therein."^ The Earl of Sussex, in his reply to a catechising letter of Cecil, gives him this home-thrust : "I am glad you find my Lord of Norfolk's intent (for he made you privy to this matter) to be honourable and loyal, from which I trust*^ he will not digress in this or any other matter." ^ J ohn Foxe, the Martyrologist, wrote an earnest and affec- tionate letter to his former pupil Norfolk, expressing great uneasiness at the report, now in every one's mouth, of his anticipated marriage with the Scottish Queen ; not, how- ever, saying one word in her disparagement, which he un-'* doubtedly would have done had he really believed that her conduct had been such as her enemies had represented ; but only fearing it should be the means of troubling the tran- quillity of the realm, and the cause of ruin to Norfolk him- self, whom he warns against the treachery of his advisers in these remarkable words : " Howbelt, since the noise and clamour of the people maketh me somewhat to muse, and be- cause true love is always full of fear, I beseech you to let me ■" say what I think in this matter, that in case you take this way to marry with this lady in our Queen's days, it will in the end turn you to no great good. I beseech you, therefore, for God's sake, be circumspect, and mark well what they be that set you at this work, and whereunto they shoot. There is no greater cunning in these days than to know , whom a man may trust. Examples you have enough within the compass of your own days, whereby you may learn what noblemen have been cast away by them whom they seemed most to trust.'" * The prophetic warning of Norfolk's venerable preceptor was literally fulfilled by the perfidy of Leicester, who, per- ceiving that the Eegent Moray had already betrayed the secret of the matrimonial engagement between Norfolk and 1 Sept. 8, 1569. 2 Wright's Elizabeth, i. 323. 8 Ibid., 327. 4 Ibid., i. 325-326. The letter is a fragment, and without date. MARY STUAET. 21 Mary to Elizabeth, feigned himself sick, and earnestly requested the honour of a private visit from his royal mistress, as he had something of great importance to com- municate to her. Elizabeth visited him at Titchfield, where she seated herself by his bedside, and every one being with- drawn, he told her, with sighs and tears, " that his sickness proceeded from uneasiness of mind, being conscious of having violated his duty to her, by consenting to an intrigue for a marriage between the Duke of Norfolk and the Queen of Scots, without her cognisance, for which he was deeply penitent, and implored her forgiveness. "i He suppressed the fact that he had been requested by Norfolk and the asso- ciate nobles to communicate the matter to her Majesty ; but in lieu of that acknowledgment he made other disclosures which were considered amply to compensate for his offence. The Spanish Ambassador taking this inauspicious moment for preferring his master's suit that Mary might be re- stored to liberty, Elizabeth angrily exclaimed : " I would advise the Queen of Scots to bear her condition with less impatience, or she may chance to find some of her friends shorter by the head." On this ominous hint Norfolk, and others of the great nobles who had espoused Mary's cause, considered it prudent to retire from the Court, Before his departure, however, Norfolk sent secretly to Mary's ambassador, Lesley, Bishop of Ross, to come and confer with him at Howard House after supper. Lesley was met by Lygon, a gentleman in the Duke's ser- vice, who conducted him by a private entrance into the gaUery, where the Duke came to him, and told him that his servant, Eobertson, had brought him a ring from the Queen of Scots for a token, without any letter or message, which had greatly perplexed him, as he understood not her meaning therein. Moreover, she had sent him, two or three days before, by her trusty rider Borthwick, a cushion embroidered by herself, with the royal arms of Scotland, beneath which there was a hand, with a knife in it pruning a vine, and the motto, " Virescit vulnere virtus." Lesley knew enough of the metaphorical 1 Camden ; Udall ; Lingard. 2 Camden. ^ MARY STUAET. and poetic tone of Mary's mind to be able to explain that the mysterious design embroidered on the cushion was an<^ " Impresa" devised by herself, to convey a moral senti- ment applicable to her own case, signifying that the vine was improved by the discipline to which it was subjected, as, in the language of Scripture, " faithful are the wounds of a friend." Her meaning in sending the token-ring it was impossible for him to solve at that time. Soon after his re- , turn to his own lodgings arrived another of Mary's confi- dential servants, Barclay, the Laird of Garteley, accredited by her to deliver a private message to Norfolk. Lesley brought him immediately to Howard House, and, having apprised the Duke, introduced him into his presence. Mary's message was to this effect : " That when she might have been carried away by Leonard Dacre and his friends, it was not permitted, and now she was to be put into the hands of her enemies, the Earl of Huntingdon, who pre- tended a title to the crown of England, and the Viscount Hereford, who had said one night at supper at Wingfield, 'that the Duke of Norfolk would ere long be cut shorter, and frustrated of his enterprise, which was, as he had been in- formed, to carry the Queen of Scots away with ten thou- sand men.'"^ The following agitated letter was addressed by Mary to the French Ambassador, on the 20th of Sep- tember, — " Monsieur de la Mothe, — I send the present bearer to let you know that I shall be transported to-morrow from hence to Tutbury, and shortly afterwards to Nutingame (Nottingham), where I am to be put into the hands of tlie two greatest enemies I have in the worlds that is to say, the Earl of Huntingdon and the Viscount Hereford, and others of that faction, who have already arrived here. I find no constancy in M. de Shrewsbury in this time of my need. Notwithstanding all the fine words he has formerly given me, I perceive there is no confidence to be put in his pro- mises. These things considered, I am in very great fear of my Hfe, where- fore I pray you, as soon as you shall have received this, to transmit, by some safe channel, this pacquet to the Bishop of Ross, or rather to the Duke of Norfolk, and consult with them, and my other faithful friends, what resolu- tion will be the best to take for my safety ; and speak yourselves to the Queen of England, in order to prevent my removal, as soon as you can possibly obtain an audience." * 1 Murdin, p. 50. 2 Labanoff, vol. ii. p. 378-379. MAEY STUAET. 23 The next day, September 21, Mary was removed by a strong military force from Wingfield to Tutbury, where the Earl of Huntingdon had already arrived with a warrant to supersede the Earl of Shrewsbury in the office of her jailer. In consequence of a positive mandate from Queen Eliza- beth to that effect, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Hunting- don entered Mary's apartments, and, in defiance of her in- dignant remonstrances, ransacked all her desks, drawers, and boxes, in quest of the treasonable correspondence which the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and other great nobles of England, had been accused of holding with her. " My Lord of Shrewsbury and I," writes Huntingdon, " did search the Queen's coffers, but all in vain, except the cipher enclosed be of any value. If she had anything it is gone, I think, for my lord did tell me that she did burn many papers at Wingfield. She took very grievously our search ; pleadeth her innocency to her Majesty, of whose dealing to her she speaketh bitterly, still desiring to go to France, where she now is in great hope to have aid, because she saith the admiral is overthrown." ^ In reply to this information Elizabeth observes : " We see it very likely that either you dealt not with such coffers wherein her writings were, or else that she hath burned them all as you guess ; but you shall do well to require of her the letters which were sent to her about Easter last, signed by the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, which they both confess they sent to her by the Bishop of Eoss, and these require her to send to us, or the true copy, to be first examined by yourselves."' ^ The association of the Earl of Huntingdon with Shrews- bury, which amounted, indeed, to constituting the latter a prisoner in his own house, was so displeasing to him and his countess, as almost to induce them to make common cause with Mary in resisting the authority of the unwelcome interloper. The following is the report of Huntingdon to Cecil : " First, I find my lord not very willing to be rid of his charge ; by many speeches that have passed from him, 1 Murdin, p. 532. 2 Ibid., 539. 24 MARY STUART. I perceive it. The same mind also I guess to be in my lady, though both have said (I must confess) they be glad of the discharge they look for. My conviction, contrary to this speech, is not without cause, I am sure. I think by my lord's letters you shall gather no less, for he hath sent one up with speed, which he never told me till he was gone, and yet neither my messenger nor his message did I keep from him, for I did read my letters to him, and he required me in the reading to add the parenthesis of his present state of health, which in my last letters you do find. The Queen of Scots, also, I perceive is not willing to change her keeper, and specially for me I pray you, if it may be, let their desire take place. She desired yesternight to have sent letters to the Queen's Majesty, in company of one of our men. First, my lord came to my chamber and told me. I denied it, but so did not he, and some difference we had for that matter. After supper, Mr Borthwick came to us together with the same request. I plainly denied it, but in courteous manner, as I thought was fit, that without me he could not grant it, and so desired Borthwick to tell the Queen, which he did ; for he returned with this answer, ' that the Queen desired us to write to our Sovereign of her desire and our denial,' which I consented unto ; but first I required to speak with the Queen, as I am sure before that answer (which lost me her favour at this time), she was determined I should. In our talk with Borthwick, my lord let fall this speech : ' I can do nothing without my Lord of Huntingdon, till my man come again from the court.' Here was my first light of his man's going, whereof we had some talk, which made me verily to believe the which before I only gathered sus- piciously, I mean of his desire to keep his charge. " Therefore, I heartily require you, if my chief desire of discharge take not place, let me be solus^ or have some other match, if it be thought fit I shall serve ; for so I find in myself I shall be better able to serve than in such sort as this present I serve here. And to Ashby I would carry her, if I should have her where, by the grace of God, I would make a true account of her." ^ 1 Murdin, p. 531 . Dated Tyttebury, this Sunday morning, 25tli of Sept. 1 589. MARY STUART. 25 Huntingdon insinuates, in conclusion, that the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury are connivers at the interdicted correspondence the royal captive continued to carry on with her friends, both in Scotland and England, if not aiders and abettors therein, which there is shrewd reason to believe they were. Mary wrote, and certainly found means to send to the French Ambassador, the following ciphered statement of her situation, and the apprehensions she entertained in conse- quence of the dangerous predicament in which she was then placed: " I know not whether you are aware how uncivilly I have been treated, my scrutoires and coffers ransacked, my servants menaced and driven away, and myself prohibited from writing, or receiving letters, and all my people searched. I am here at Tutbury, where they tell me I am to be under the charge of my Lord of Huntingdon." After repeating her apprehensions that her life would not be safe in such keeping, she says : " I pray you to consult with those whom you know to be my friends, and tell the Queen of England that if any harm befalls me, being in the hands of those who are suspected of wishing me ill, that she will be reputed by the king, my brother-in-law, and all other princes, the cause of my death. Use your own discretion in advertising the Duke of Norfolk, and warn him to take care of himself, for he is threatened with the Tower.^ " Communicate with the Bishop of Ross on this instantly, for I cannot tell whether he knows about it. I have risked sending four of my servants to advertise him about It, but know not whether they have succeeded, for Borthwick was stopped and searched, but he had hidden his letters by the way, wherelhave found means of having them withdrawn. I have written to the King and the Queen-mother of (France), and have sent the pacquet for you to give it, or Ross. Make my excuses for not being able to write myself, and commend me to their favour. I beseech you also to move the ambas- sador of the King of Spain to plead in my behalf, for my life is in danger if I remain in those hands of the Earl of Huntingdon, I pray you to encourage and counsel my 1 Labanoff, vol. ii. p. 380. 26 MARY STUART. friends to hold themselves prepared, and to do for me now or never. Keep this letter secret, that no one know of it, or I shall be more strictly guarded; and give your letters to this bearer secretly, for Lord Shrewsbury"'s ship, the most sure and convenient way possible, for that will serve me, and find favour with him ; but if it were known, it would be my ruin. It will be necessary to find some Englishman to con- vey your tidings to me. They might try the Bailiff of Derby, and some others. I implore you to take pity on a poor captive who is in danger of her life, and that without having committed any offence. If I remain longer here, I shall lose not only my kingdom, but my life, even if they did me no other ill than the vexation I feel at having lost all intelligence or hope of succouring my faithful subjects. If prompt aid be not found for this, may God in His mercy grant me patience, and that whatever befall me I may die in His faith, and in good will to the King and Queen, to whom I pray you to make my lamentation, and to the Car- dinal de Lorraine my uncle. " Since writing this letter, Huntingdon has returned, having from the Queen (Elizabeth) the absolute charge of me. The Earl of Shrewsbury, at my request, has asked for me not to be taken away from him, and will keep me till the next despatch comes. I pray you to represent the injustice and violation of the law of the country, in putting me into the hands of one who makes the same pretensions to the Crown that I do. You are aware also of the difference of our faith." She concludes by repeating her earnest recommendation to La Mothe " to send all letters written in her behalf by Lord Shrewsbury's ship, as the safest and most advan- tageous medium of communication." In explanation of this advice it is proper to mention, that Shrewsbury and his money-making Countess, Bess of Hard- wick, carried on a very brisk trade in the sale, barter, and exchange of the rich mineral produce of their estates, and that they had two or three vessels always plying, employed in the transport of these commodities between the north- west and north-east ports of England and London. It was MARY STUART. 27 by means of these ships that the captive Queen contrived to carry on her interdicted correspondence with her friends and allies.' In a letter of indignant and pathetic remonstrance to Elizabeth, Mary complained " of the injurious treatment to which she had been subjected, her sudden removal and change of keepers. That w^hich grieves her most, the dis- missal of her faithful servants, without any place of refuge, or means of livelihood being assigned them, for the pur- pose, apparently, of forcing them to surrender themselves into the hands of the rebels, to be hanged, and requii'ing her to send away her women, not knowing whither, without money or support, so far away from their country, and in such inclement weather." After this statement, she adds : — " This seems to me harder than anything I ever thought to experience from you, and then the proliibition is most serious to me, that I am not to receive letter or message regarding my affairs in Scotland, which are in such extremity through my reliance on your promises of their being shortly settled; nor is it permitted me to receive tidings from France, not even of the health of princes my relations and friends, who are await- ing, as I have done, some manifestations of your favour towards me. In- stead of which I am closely confined, debarred from stirring out, and have been subjected to my coffers being ransacked by armed men, who entered my chamber with loaded pistols, put me in fear of my life, accused my people, searched them, and set guards over them. And although after all this nothing was discovered that either concerned you or could in any way be displeasing to you, I got no better treatment. But seeing that there is rather an ap- pearance of being led a worse life, I have determined to make a last request on these points. In the first place, if the declaration of the Bishop of Ross is not satisfactory to you, that you will permit me to satisfy you in person. Secondly, that you will please, without further delay, to restore me to my country and authority, by your assistance, or permit me, according to my old petition, to withdraw to France, to the Most Christian King, my brother-in- law, or at least that in my prison I may have liberty to communicate with the Bishop of Ross, and other necessary ministers, in order to arrange busi- ness ; and that to these my earnest requests you will make answer, either by one of my people, or by letter. And, in conclusion, if it pleases you to treat me as your prisoner, I entreat you, at any rate, to set a ransom on me, without leaving me to consume away here in tears and regrets at receiving this evil where I came in quest of aid. But if it be your pleasure to treat me with rigour I have not deserved, put me not at least into the hands of a person suspected of my friends and relations, for fear of incurring false reports, or worse than I will think of any one. And hoping that you will consider these my complaints and requests, according to conscience, justice, your laws, your honour, and the satisfaction of all Christian princes, I will pray God to give you happy and long life, and to me greater share in your 28 MAEY STUART. favour, than to my regret I perceive myself, by the effects, to have. From my prison at Tutbury, this first of October, your very affectionate, afflicted sister and cousin, " " Marie." ^ ^ Her appeals were unavailing. Cecil wrote to Shrews- bury, " that the Queen's Majesty did approve of the entrance of the men-at-arms, with pistolets, into the Queen of Scots' chamber, in the performance of their duty." As for her objections to the Earl of Huntingdon's jailership, on account of those rival claims to the regal succession which might render her death a desirable event to him, Mary must have been very simple not to perceive it was for that cause she had been consigned to his keeping. She wronged him by her suspicions, nevertheless, for he resisted all tempta- tions to harm her. The public mind was greatly excited on the subject of -< Mary's fortunes at this juncture. Wagers were laid in Scotland " that she would speedily return home to enjoy her own again/' and predictions were rife in England that she would presently be called from her prison to the throne of that realm. " There is one Richard Candish," wrote Lord Wentworth from Norfolk to Cecil, " who came down about the same time as the Duke did, hath reported, as I hear, that it is concluded by astronomy that the Scottish damsel shall be Queen, and the Duke her husband." ^ Norfolk lacked the courage and decision requisite to command success. Ridolphi, the busy Papal agent, told Norfolk's Secretary, Barker, " that if the Duke chose to act with courage and decision, all would go well; for he had spoken with Lord Montacute, and other nobles, who were all well affected to Queen Mary's cause. All they wanted to know was, what course he would take ; therefore, if he had any heart or courage in him, then was the time to show it, for if he did not, all the world would cry shame on him, and the Queen of Scots would have cause to *urse him." When Barker repeated these observations to his lord, the latter scornfully replied : " Full little doth Ridolphi know our opinions. He thinks my lord of Arundel, and my brother Lumley, to be two such men as are not in a country again ; but I know 1 Labanoff, vol. ii. p. 383-385. 2 Haynes' State Papers. MARY STUAET. 29 the contrary, and so do you. And as for my Lord Mont- acute, I do not take him to be my friend, for Leonard Dacre's matter." Leonard Dacre had married Lord Mont- acute's sister. " But if the other two,'' continued Norfolk, " were as mighty as Ridolphi would make them, and the third as trusty as he takes him, I will not cast away myself, my children, and my friends, for none of them all. I am bound to the Queen of Scots in honour ; if I can comfort and quiet her, I am content."' ^ Norfolk wrote from Kenninghall to Queen Elizabeth an apology for not complying with her summons to attend her at Windsor, alleging her hard speeches of him, and his fear of arrest as the reason. She sent in reply a peremptory order for him to return. He pleaded illness in excuse, and wrote to Cecil to inquire whether he should incur any danger by obeying the Queen's requisition. Cecil assured him he would not, and advised him by all means to come without delay. Thus encouraged, he commenced his journey, not- withstanding the earnest dissuasions of faithful friends in his own country. At Burnham he was arrested by the Queen's command, to whom the Kegent Moray had sent all his letters by Pitcairn, Abbot of Dunfermline, together with such representations as placed his motives in seeking an alliance with Mary in the most prejudicial point of view.2 Norfolk now reaped the bitter fruits of his own vacillating and deceptive conduct in regard to Mary, for if he had, with the manly spirit of an English nobleman, avowed, in the first instance, his conviction of her innocence, and his desire to be honoured with her hand, he would have confounded the devices of her usurping brother, and given far less cause of displeasure to his own sovereign, than by suffering him- self to be lured by that perfidious traitor into a series of intrigues for accomplishing the marriage, by means that could not fail to appear disloyal and suspicious. No one can wonder that Elizabeth was incensed at his proceedings, nor was her anger mitigated by the opinion expressed by her Council, " that the Duke of Norfolk did not appear to have ^ Barker's Confession, Sept. 21, 1571— Murdin, 105. ^ Camden. Hayues. Tytler. Labanoff's Chronology. 30 MAKY STUAET. done anything for which the law could inflict any severe pen- alty." " Away," exclaimed she, " what the law cannot do, my authority shall effect I" Overpowered by the violence of her excitement, she fainted. Vinegar and other restora- tives were administered to her in the Council Chamber. The general opinion is, that if Norfolk had rem ained at Kenninghall for a few days, he would have been safe. The eastern counties, and a considerable district of Yorkshire, were at his devotion. He was the most popular nobleman in the metropolis, where he kept open house, and endeared him- self to all degrees of men, by his munificence and courtesy. His brother-in-law, the Earl of Westmoreland, and the Earl of Northumberland, only delayed raising the standard of rebellion in the north, in compliance with his earnest re- quest for them not to stir at that time,— the only time when, by prompt decision and simultaneous action, there was a prospect of success. He temporised and delayed, in vain re- liance on the promised aid of the King of Spain, who never intended him any good. The busy intrigues of the Duke of Alva, through the agency of Ridolphi, tended indeed to dis- quiet Elizabeth, but they ended in the disappointment and ruin of the blinded dupes who confided in their friendship. The Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, Lord Lumley, and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, having obeyed the Queen's summons to Windsor, were all arrested and sharply inter- rogated separately, and their answers compared ; but all agreed in exonerating Mary from practising in any way to stir up seditions against Elizabeth. ^ Her representative, the Bishop of Ross, being cited before commissioners appointed by Elizabeth to interrogate him, among whom were Sir William Cecil, the Marquess of Northampton, the Earl of Bedford, and Sir Francis Knollys, boldly replied : " Ye know well that the project of this marriage originated neither with the Queen of Scots, my sovereign, nor with me, having been suggested both to her Majesty ^ Despatches of La Mothe Fenelon. 2 The examinations, though very curious and instructive, are too volu- minous and discursive for more than occasional references. They will be found in Haynes' and Murdin's Collections of State Papers. MARY STUAET. 31 and me by the principal lords of the council and of the realm of England/'^ When Mary heard of Norfolk's arrest and committal to the Tower, she was much distressed, but, though under very strict restraint herself, she wrote and found means to convey a letter to him, expressing her " sorrow for his imprison- ment, the more so," she said, " because it was in her cause." 2 How little she was aware of the real state of the case, ap- pears by her adding, that " if he had had such friends as the Earl of Leicester, and some others seemed to be, he had not come into that danger/' Norfolk replied, " that he doubted not but he should do well enough ; his own innocency would defend him, and that he was not so destitute of friends as she apprehended ; for he nothing doubted of the Earl of Leicester, but that he would stand as steadfast to him as the Earl of Pembroke and others his assured friends, who were in durance as well as himself."^ In consequence of the denunciations of the Eegent Moray, Mary's state became most precarious, and created great solicitude among the nobles of her party in England ; their servants, however, were far more earnest in her behalf. Owen, a gentleman in the household of the Earl of Arundel, came to the Bishop of Ross and anxiously inquired, " if there could no way be found to get the Scot- tish Queen out of Tutbury Castle, for if there could, she might be conveyed to Arundel in Sussex, and embark there for France." ^ Mary herself wrote to Norfolk that " she had the prospect, through friendship in the Earl of Shrewsbury's house, of effecting her escape, and that if he could find means to get out of the Tower, she would adven- ture herself, but not otherwise, for she would not leave him in danger for any safeguard of her own life."^ Norfolk replied by representing how perilous it would be for her to make any attempt at escaping from the place 1 La Mothe Fenelon's Despatches, vol. ii. p. 270. 2 Higford's Examination, Oct. 11, 1571— Murdin, p. 81. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Murdin's State Papers, 20, 6 Higford's Deposition, Oct. 11, 1571— Murdin, 81. 32 MAEY STUART. where she then was, and " that the friends on whom she relied might, notwithstanding their fair promises, leave her in the lurch when the matter came to the push. As for himself, he neither could nor would hazard getting out of his prison, considering there was no great danger for him at present ; but if she should seek to escape and be taken, he would be like to abide greater brunt for her doings than for anything of his own, and therefore wished her to con- tent herself with her state, such as it was, rather than blindly to seek to overthrow herself, her friends, and her cause." The selfishness, as well as the pusillanimity of this answer, must be apparent to every one. Mary, how- ever, conformed herself to his pleasure in this, as she had on the previous occasion, and the opportunity for effecting her escape was once more lost to her. She " contented her- self in her present durance," she said, " since it was his will that she should continue to abide in her English prison," and only required of him, in return for her self-sacrifice, " con- stancy in his affection towards her." ^ Their letters to each other were frequent at this time. His are not in existence ; hers wei'e very brief, giving an account of the state of her health and her affairs in Scotland.^ All the letters Mary wrote to Norfolk, simple and inno- cent though they were, were in cipher — and without using this caution she never ventured to send a letter to him — although it is certain the noble lover lacked skill to solve these pretty mysteries when they arrived. Higford, one of his private secretaries, was accustomed to decipher them, and transcribe the sense in plain writing, which he then gave the Duk6 to read. " But there was a time," deposes Banister, another of the gentlemen in his service, " within a little time after my lord was committed to the Tower, that Higford was sequestered from him, during which the Queen of Scots sent divers letters to my lord, and because her cipher was evil to be read, and he was then much troubled with the migraine in his head, he returned these letters to me back, and willed me to get them deciphered, and then to send them in to him ; and because I thought it 1 Higford's Deposition, October 11, 1571— Mur din, 81. ^ ibi^. MARY STUAET. 33 not fit that one John Cuthbart, servant to the Bishop of Eoss, who brought those letters to me, should be privy to the Queen of Scots' writing, I prayed him to deliver me a copy of his alphabet, which he did, and, during the time of Higford's sequestration, I deciphered, by that alphabet, such letters as came from the Queen of Scots, and sent them unto my lord. Those letters were in number either three or four, and most certain it is, tended altogether to matters of love ; for about that time there was half a jealousy on my lord's part touching the Queen of Scots' faithfulness towards him, by the which she put my lord out of all doubt, as I think may appear by one of those ciphers.^ And afterwards, when Higford was restored to my lord again, such letters as I received, being sealed, were sent in in that form to his Grace, and then I was not privy to the contents thereof Several of Mary's letters were smuggled into the Tower in ale-bottles, the corks of such as contained these peril- ous missives being marked with a very minute cross to indicate which they were. Norfolk's answers were returned in the same way.^ Cuthbart, the deciphering secretary of the Bishop of Ross, and a tall countryman, a servant of Sir Henry Neville, besides the jailer's maid, and one or two other female servants in the Tower, being among the agents through whom the correspondence was carried on. ^ The dangerous situation in which Mary was at this eventful period, is apparent by the reply of Espes, the Spanish ambassador, when the Earl of Northumberland confided to him his intention to take her out of her prison by force. " I cannot advise the employment of force, for it would infallibly cause her to be instantly put to death." ^ The only hope of effecting her enfranchisement was by stratagem — such stratagem as female ingenuity could de- vise and female courage execute. Nor were projects of the kind lacking. The Countess of Northumberland, while with her lord on a visit at the house of Mr Wentworth, one 1 Banister's Declaration, ult. Septembris 1571— Murdin, 138. 2 Camden— Murdiu. ^ Ibid. " Gonzales. VOL. VII. ■ C 34 MARY STUAET. of their confederates in that neighbourhood, suggested the following romantic scheme for that purpose. The wife of * Bastian, Margaret Cawood, being in childbed, the Countess proposed obtaining admittance, in the character of a nurse for her, into the apartments occupied by Queen Mary and her ladies, then changing clothes with her Majesty, who, in that disguise, was to effect her escape, while she remained to personate her, there being in height and figure some resemblance between them/ But this plan, easy enough in theory, was found impracticable. Northumberland, when subsequently interrogated on the nature of his lady's acquaintance with the Queen of Scots, replied, " My wife never saw her, nor myself, but at Car- lisle in the presence of many, about half an hour.^ John Hamlen brought the first letter to me with tokens to us all ; likewise John Leveston, a gentleman of hers, brought two or three letters at sundry times from her. The effect of every one of them was giving thanks for my good affection towards her. Tokens were sent commonly with the let- ters, as myself received a ring, with a diamond, about the value of £5 or £6 by Hamlen ; my wife likewise, at the same time, another of small value. Another time, by John Leveston, a cross of gold about £5 or £4. To my wife a little stone set in a tablet of gold ; another time, by Francis Norton, a ring with a little diamond. My wife and I did send back such tokens and trifles as we had. I opened my mind with John Leveston how much it was misliked, not only by me but sundry others, that she should bestow herself in marriage with a Protestant, as the Duke of Norfolk was accounted to be ; and if she ever looked to recover her estate, it must be by the advancing of the Catholic religion, for there ought to be no halting in these matters, and if the Duke of Norfolk was a sound Catholic, I would rejoice as much as any other." ^ A meeting of the confederates took place within a bowshot of the Earl of Northumberland's park at TopclifFe, soon after Norfolk's arrest, to consider what course ought to be adopted ; his 1 Letter of the Earl of Shrewsbury to Cecil— State Paper Office MS. - Confession of the Earl of Northumberland — Sir Cuthbert Sharp's Memorials of the Northern Rebellion. » jj^^j^^ MARY STUART. 35 message to them was, " in no wise to rise, or he should lose his head." Mary also sent an accredited messenger to their rendezvous in Gawtry Forest, near York, " to beg them not to stir." It would have been well for Northumberland and many- others who had embarked in this rash undertaking if they had obeyed her prudent injunction ; but the intemperate counsels of Norfolk's sister, the Countess of Westmoreland, prevailed ; for when she heard that the intended rising was to be abandoned, she wept bitterly, and cried out, " We and our country be shamed for ever ! " and by her passionate urgency induced her lord and others to persevere in their fatal course. Their great desire was to obtain possession of Mary's person. " In the having of her," said Northum- berland, " we hoped to have some reformation in religion, or, at least, some sufferance for men to use their conscience as they were disposed, and also to obtain the freedom of her whom we accounted the second person in England and right heir-apparent." 1 So far, however, from giving the slightest encouragement to their insurrectionary project, it is certain Mary did her utmost to dissuade them from undertaking it. Fears for the life of Norfolk, and a sad presentiment that her own condition would be aggravated by their enter- prise, appear to have dictated her pacific policy. She was, withal, ever accustomed to say, " I would rather pray with Esther than take the sword with Judith." The month of October wore away in the gloomy calm that generally precedes a tempest. From the reports of La Mothe Fenelon of the 18th of that month, it appears there was some talk of removing Mary to Kenilworth, the mag- nificent seat of the Earl of Leicester ; but Elizabeth, though she had formerly pertinaciously recommended her handsome Master of the Horse as a consort to Mary, was too wary to trust the person of the fair rival of her title to his keeping. The demeanour and characteristics of the captive Queen are thus described by La Mothe in the same despatch : " She displays the utmost magnanimity, and a great and virtuous mind in the midst of evils and adverse fortunes." 1 Confession of the Earl of Northumberland— Sir Cuthbert Sharp's Memorials of the Northex-n Rebellion. 36 MARY STUAET. t Precluded from the air and exercise to which she had been accustomed, and which was so necessary for her peculiar constitution, Mary fell sick. Her illness was re- ported by her jailer to Cecil, on the 9th of November. " She is treated with great severity," writes La Mothe Fen^lon to his Sovereign ; " but has found means to forward to me the four letters enclosed, which I really believe she has written without light. I assure your Majesty they will-< move you to compassion. The Duke of Norfolk is in the Tower ; his guards have been doubled within the last few days." In his next despatch he says, " that, in the folding of his paper, he had enclosed a little letter from the Queen of Scots, which, not having been received, he now sends a copy, whereby they may see the state of the said lady, and^ consult on the means of moving the heart of the Queen of England, if it be not too hard." ^ Mary wrote from her sick chamber to Cecil, " that she had divers times complained to the Queen, her good sister, of the miscourteous manner in which she was used.^ She addressed the following appeal to Elizabeth herself : — ^ " I have deferred as long as I could importuning you with my lamenta- tions, hoping that with Time, the father of Truth, your good nature^ considering the malice of my foes, who, without any check, have run their furious course against me, would incline you to have pity on your own blood, who chose you from among all other princes for refuge, next to God. Confiding in your friendly letters and loving promises, encouraged by the ties of kindred and near neighbourhood, I came and put myself into your hands and in your power, voluntarily and without constraint, where I have remained more than two years, sometimes in hope of your favour, through your courteous letters ; at other times plunged in despair, by the practices and false reports of my adversaries. Nevertheless, my affection for you has always made me hope for the best, and suffer the worst patiently. Alas, Madam ! what greater sign of affection could I testify for you than to confide in you 1 And what return render you as the fruit of the hope which your sister and cousin has reposed in you, who would ' Neither the letter here mentioned, nor the four "which Mary had written without light," are, however, to be found among La Mothe's despatches, having probably been either lost or dexterously extracted by some spy ; for in the month of September his courier was stopped by several masked ruffians, flung from his horse, violently despoiled of his despatches, and tied to a tree. La Mothe Fenelon made indignant complaints of this out- rage ; but as Catherine de Medicis had set her mind on a marriage between Elizabeth and her son, an excuse was readily accepted. « Labanoffi, vol. ii. p. 388. ' Ibid. 390. MAEY STUART. 37 not have her seek succour elsewhere ? Will my reliance on you be useless, ► my patience unavailing, and the love and respect I have shown you be so undervalued, that I am not to obtain that which you could not justly refuse to the greatest stranger in the world ? I never injured you^ but have loved, honoured, and by every means striven to please, and assure you of my goodwill towards you." She then tells Elizabeth, " that the person calling himself Abbot of Dunfermline boasts that she is to be delivered into the hands of her rebel lords,'' and concludes with this pathetic appeal : — " You have known what it is to be in trouble ; judge, then, from that what others suffer in like case. The readiness with which you have inclined your ear to the inventions of my enemies has rendered you suspicious of me. It is time to inquire what it is that has moved them to their treacherous conduct to me, and to reflect that it was affection for you that induced me to come to a place where you have this power over me. Eecall to memory the offers of amity that you have made to me, the acts of friend- ship you have promised me, and how, from my desire of pleasing you, I have been induced to neglect the support of other princes by your advice and promises of yours. Forget not the duties of hospitality to me alone ; weigh well my confidence in your honour, and have pity for your own blood, and then, I hope, I shall have no cause to repent me of what I have done. Think also. Madam, what place I have held, and how I have been nurtured, and if, having by the practices of my rebels or other enemies received treatment so different from her by whose means I had hoped to receive help and comfort, how difficult it is for me to support such a burden of calamity with the addition of your ill-will, which appears to me the hardest of all, because I have not deserved it." i 1 Labanoff, vol. ii. pp. 392, 393. MARY STUART. CHAPTEE LI. SUMMARY. Temporary improTement in Mary's treatment — Huntingdon witlidrawn — Northern Rebellion — Huntingdon returns — Mary removed under his guard from Tutbury Castle — She sleeps at Ashby-de-la-Zouch— Carried to Coventry — Lack of accommodations there — She is lodged at the Black Bull Inn — Removed to the Mayoress's Parlour — Particulars of her resi- dence there — Further reduction of her servants threatened — She appeals to Cecil — Her secret correspondence with Norfolk — Matrimonial over- tures from Leicester proposed to her by Huntingdon— She will not give up Norfolk — Letter from Mary to Norfolk — Warrant for putting her to death — Project for her liberation — She consults Norfolk — He objects — Secret negotiations for delivering her up to the rebel faction in Scotland — She is brought back to Tutbury Castle— Requisitions for her blood — Progress of Elizabeth's secret treaty for giving her up to the Regent Moray — Mary's uneasiness and alarm — Her perilous position— Death of the Regent Moray — Mary's compassionate reception of the news — Her letter to Lady Moray — She demands her jewels — Arrest of her Ambassador, the Bishop of Ross — Dangerous discovery of his intrigues — Mary's personal peril — Her uneasiness— Elizabeth sends troops to crush Mary's party in Scotland — Mary's passionate remonstrances— Appeals to the King of France for aid — She is transferred to Chatsworth — Memorials of her abode there — She is visited by a French envoy — Inedited letter from a faithful servant in Scotland — Anecdote of the little Prince her son — Attachment of the Scotch ladies to Mary. Mary's condition was somewhat ameliorated for a few days, -in consequence of the intercessions of the Court of France. " The Queen of Scots," La Mothe Fenelon reports,^ " has sent me tidings that she is better treated, and already feels the benefit of the representation your Majesties made in her behalf to this Queen, her cousin, notwithstanding the great wrath still borne against her. Pluntingdon and his men » November 10, 1569. MAEY STUART. 39 have been withdrawn, so that, for the present, she Is in the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury alone, and both he and his Countess behave in all things truly and honourably to the Queen of Scots." ^ It is certainly pleasant to be able to record anything of a favourable nature of Bess of Hard- wick and her lord ; but the introduction of the Earl of Huntingdon into their castles had been not a whit more agreeable to them than to their royal guest ; and they ap- pear, as far as they durst, to have made common cause with her to outwit and circumvent him. It would indeed have been impossible for her to have sent and received so many letters as she did at this period without their connivance. The satisfaction produced to the inmates of Tutbury Castle, by Huntingdon's departure, was of brief duration. Scarcely could he have been absent three days, when the breaking out of the Northern Rebellion rendered his return with a strong reinforcement of men-at-arms necessary. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland raised the standard of insurrection on the 14th of November ; entered Durham in triumph on the 15th, and, supported by a wild muster of the Eoman Catholic population, advanced towards Tutbury.^ Shrewsbury wrote in great alarm to Cecil, in- forming him " that the rebels were within fifty-four miles of Tutbury," and that the castle was unprovided for a siege. Long before this announcement could have been received in London a warrant arrived ordering Shrewsbury and Huntingdon to remove the Scottish Queen to Coventry, under a strong guard, and lodge her in the Castle there. No time was allowed the captive Queen and her ladies for making the necessary preparations for this unexpected change of abode. The case was considered one of extreme urgency, and she was compelled to commence her journey the same day the mandate arrived, November 24th, pro- bably in the afternoon, for they only reached Ashby-de-la- Zouch,^ a distance of fourteen miles, that night. There ' Despatches of La Mothe F^nglon. ^ Memorials of the Northern Rebellion, by Sir C. Sharp. Camden. ^ Situated on the western verge of Leicestershire, where that county joins Warwickshire and Derbyshire. 40 MAEY STUART. Mary slept. Under other circumstances she might have enjoyed a much longer sojourn than was permitted her, in a place with which so many interesting associations, both historical and chivalric, were connected, and where wealth and taste had done everything that could em- bellish rich English scenery, and the appointments of a stately baronial mansion. But she was dragged thither, sorely against her will, by a stern jailer, not a hospi- table host, whose bread she ate in bitterness of spirit and alarm, without pretending to disguise her suspicion that he had been selected, on account of his rival preten- sions to the regal inheritance she claimed, as the instrument for her slaughter. There were, moreover, strong polemic animosities between them 5 for not only was he the recog- nised head of the Puritan party In England, and the patron of every divine who had written against her, but the friend and maintain er of several turbulent Scotch preachers who had troubled her government by the advocacy of republican principles from the pulpit, and preferred living on his bounty to returning to their own country and scrambling for the miserable pittance accorded by her usurping brother to the reformed ministers in Scotland. Mary might possibly have found her advantage had she endeavoured to conciliate some of these exiles, by explaining the liberal and en- lightened principles on which it had ever been her desire to govern, instead of Indulging in child-like petulance against Huntingdon and all his belongings : she certainly did him wrong by her openly avowed opinion that he in- tended to become her murderer. Seventeen years later he avenged himself by voting for her death, though he would not stain his own mansion with her blood. He knew enough of Elizabeth's disposition to be aware that he would have been sacrificed to a popular outcry if he had yielded to the temptation thus thrown in his way. Mary left the uncongenial towers of Ashby-de-la-Zouch unscathed, after one night's troubled repose there, and was conducted by Huntingdon and Shrewsbury to the ancient city of Coventry, where she arrived late that night.^ The ^ Cecil's Diary. MAEY STUAET. 41 distance was twenty-six miles, and she is said to have halted with her keepers for temporary rest and refreshment at the ancient hostelry at Atherstone, called the Three Tuns, where her great-grandfather, Henry VII., when Earl of Richmond, passed the night before the battle of Bosworth, that being the half-way house between Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Coventry. She would also pass the spot where Richard was encamped, and within a mile and a half of the ground where that memorable battle was won, which transferred the long-contested crown of England to the victorious founder of the Tudor dynasty, of whom she esteemed her- self to be the lawful representative. The particulars of Mary Stuart's compulsory abode at Coventry, having escaped the attention of her previous bio- graphers, are for the first time amalgamated with her personal history in the following pages, collated from the unpublished correspondence in the State-Paper Office, and the contem- porary civic MSS. of that historical city. To lodge their illustrious charge in the castle, according to their instruc- tions, the two earls found impossible, for not only was it in the most ruinous and untenable condition, but wholly destitute of furniture, not having been repaired or inha- bited since the Wars of the Roses. In this dilemma, after vainly endeavouring to obtain more suitable quar- ters for their royal charge and themselves, the two earls were fain to take her to the Black Bull Inn in Smith- ford Street, near the gateway of the Greyfriars, just within the entrance of the town,l and to guard her there until better arrangements could be made. Late as it was, Shrewsbury wrote to Cecil the same night announcing the safe arrival of the Queen of Scots, informing him of the place where, for lack of other accommodations, they had This ancient hostelry was demolished at the close of the last century, and the present barracks were erected on the site. The officers' rooms occupy the site of the apartments where Queen Mary and her ladies were confined from the 25th of November till December 9th. Coventry was at that period surrounded by massive walls, fortified with thirty towers and gates. The pastoral river Sherburne was then in existence, and a park which occupied three miles of ground. We are promised, ere long, that great desideratum in historical topography, a good and complete history and description of Coventry, carefully compiled by the venerable antiquary, Mr Merrydew of Leamington. 42 MAEY STUAET. been compelled to place her, promising to keep her secluded from every eye, since the more she was seen the greater ■would be the danger, and recommending Nottingham Castle as a fitter place for her custody.^ Huntingdon writes, November 28th, expressing anxiety to receive instructions as to what should be done with the captive Queen. " She lieth," he says, " at an inn where for me there is no lodging ; her men also lie in the town, and go where they will, so as they may practise how they list. I have sought to get another house, which I have obtained, but we cannot go thither for lack of stuff (furniture), which I have also sought for amongst the citizens here, which yet they have not an- swered. My companion (Shrewsbury) hath brought none, nor will send for any till he knows whether he shall continue in the charge, whereof he seemeth doubtful, I also make no provision, for that I look not to stay here. It were very good that her Majesty's determined pleasure were known, and the sooner the better, both in what place this Queen shall remain, and who shall have the guard of her."^ The perplexity in which Huntingdon found himself, and his distrust of Shrewsbury, are cautiously intimated by him in his letter to Cecil on the following day,^ in which he re- iterates the unfitness of the place where Mary then was for the privacy requisite, stating also that he had found a house more suitable, but his coadjutor was unwilling to remove her. " This Queen," he sarcastically observes, " would fain come to "Windsor to be a courtier : if I be not deceived, she doth look for it. She would fain have us to write to her Majesty of her humble yielding to her Highness' pleasure, for her removal from Tyt (Tutbury). When our first letters were sent, it should have been written by her will, but neither my lord nor I did think it fit. You write that you would have her to be kept from sight and conference, ' Shrewsbury to Cecil, jSTovember 25, 1569 — unpublished State Paper Office MS. ^ Huntingdon to Cecil, November 28, 1569— unpublished State Paper Office MS. ^ Huntingdon to Cecil, November 29 — unpublished State Paper Office MS. MAEY STUAET. 43 but must tell you that neither is done, nor will be done above four days together. Yet that it is most convenient I must grant, and I^have spoken for it ; but more I cannot do, neither in this nor anything else. If I feared my tarrying in this charge with this companion long, I would renew my old suit for respect of her Majesty's service and discharge of my duty that way, and not for myself ; for surely I can- not be matched with one that will use me more friendly, but you know what moveth me hereto." This, of course, was a suspicion that Shrewsbury was more favourably disposed towards Mary than was compatible with the policy of Eliza- beth and her ministers. " If you mind," continues Hunting- don, " she shall tarry here, I have provided another house, whither I would fain have my lord to go, but I do not per- ceive that he will yet have her thither. I, with the help of the magistrates of this city, caused all necessaries to be pro- vided, wherein surely, as in all things that tend to the ser- vice of her Majesty, they are most forward." i Elizabeth wrote an angry letter to the two Earls, ex- pressing much displeasure " that they had carried the Scottish Queen to an inn, which," she observes, " is very inconvenient even for the name's sake, and directs them to remove her to the Greyfriars or some other convenient house, and that they should lodge in the same house with her, and not suffer her to be seen abroad on any pretence whatsoever."^ She also instructs them, " as they had found the citizens of Coventry very dutiful and loyal, to dismiss half the four hundred persons they had brought thither as her guard, considering that the danger was nearly over ; " but charges them " not on any account to bring Mary nearer to London." In reply to this rating, the Earls jointly, and with the most profound humility, observe, — "And where your Majesty doth mislike with the lodging of this Queen in an inn, it may please you to understand that, upon Mr Skipwith com- ' Huntingdon to Cecil, November 29 — State Paper Office MS., unpub- lished. * Elizabeth's Letter is dated Windsor, November 30 — Gentleman's Magazine, January 1841. 44 MARY STUART. ing (by whom your Highness did send your commandment for the bring- ing her hither), we did immediately send our men to prepare a lodging for her, and gave them in charge to get either Mr Hale's house, or some merchant's, which by no means, on so short warning, could be obtained ; and since our coming hither, we have done the best we could to prepare a lodging, which till this day could not be made ready for want of necessary stuff (furniture), whereof I, the Earl of Shrewsbury, could not be provided, at such sudden notice, for want of carriages, which in this town were not to be gotten. And we humbly beseech your Majesty to think of us that we did as much mislike to lodge her thus, as we knew it to be a very unfit place for her, but especially because we were assured it would offend your Majesty, till you understood the necessity that caused it; and for the re- moving of her, as we did provide for it before the receipt of your Majesty's letters, so we do appoint that it shall be this night or to-morrow, for sooner the house where she shall be could not be prepared." ^ These preparations were, however, more tardy than was anticipated, for it was not till a full week after the date of this letter that the removal was accomplished. The Countess of Shrewsbury, who had accompanied her lord to Coventry, where she appears to have acted as com- mander-in-chief, wrote to Cecil on the 9th of December to certify that " the removal of the Queen of Scots from the Black Bull Inn to a house in Coventry had been accom- plished, and all possible measures taken for her safe and sure keeping."^ The new prison to which Mary Stuart was transferred was the antique mansion, within the gateway, opposite St Michael's Church, adjoining St Mary's Hall,^ being indeed a portion of the same building, and occupying two sides of the court whereof that stately banqueting-room forms so interesting a part. The apartments where Mary and her ladies were lodged are still in existence, together with the curious old wooden gallery connected with them, which looks into the court below. The spacious withdrawing- room, anciently known by the primitive name of the Mayoress's Parlour,^ which is now used as the council- room of the mayor and corporation of Coventry, was the presence-chamber of the captive Queen. Her bedchamber and those of her ladies were adjacent, A small private ' Huntingdon and Shrewsbury to Cecil, Dec. 2, 1 569. State Paper MS. * State Paper Office MS., unpublished. ^ Hearne's Appendix to Fordun's Scotichronicou. " MS. Town-Book of Coventry. MARY STUART. 45 stair gave her access into St Mary's Hall, all the exercise that was permitted her being a melancholy promenade there, attended by her keepers, and prevented from all communication with strangers. Indeed, the approach of such was impossible ; no unauthorised person could pass the fortified gateway that guarded the court and purlieus of the mansion, and shut them in from all the world. Mary had, however, no less than five-and-twenty of her faithful Scotch and French servants in attendance on her during her sojourn in Coventry. Among these were Mary Seton, Jane Kennedy, Marie Courcelles, Mary Bruce; Andrew Beton, her Master of the Household ; Archibald Beton, her usher ; Castellaune, her physician ; and last, not least, those devoted Protestant followers, Lord and Lady Living- ston, and Willie Douglas. She had also her cook and officers of the kitchen, butlers, and other menials.^ A reduction of her attendants being proposed, she ad- dressed a spirited appeal to Cecil on the subject, and carried her point, for on the 9th. she informs him "that she perceives, by the order taken by the Earl of Shrewsbury for her ser- vants to remain with her, that her request has taken effect." She adds an autograph " Postscriptum " in her almost un- intelligible English, thanking him "for this his lawful favour to her. Albeit," observes she, " I vreit nott this tuo tymes with my hand, for I was not well at neider tyme." In her next letter to Cecil from Coventry, Mary thus apo- logises for employing the pen of her secretary, on account of her severe indisposition : — " The occasion whereof we have not presently written to you with our own hand is through impediment we have of ane humour, and rewme [rheumatism] has fallen in our craig [neck] for lack of good air and exercise, which has made us to be two days in writing our letter to the Queen, our good sister, such doloitre we had, and yet is not well ; but for these respects we trust you will excuse us. "2 The order that Mary was not, on any account, to be per- mitted to stir abroad during her abode at Coventry was rigidly obeyed. During her perambulations in St Mary's ' State Paper Office MS., unpublished. Marie Stuart to Sir William Cecil, Dec. 17, 1569— Labanoff. 46 MAEY STUAET. Hall the portrait of another distressed Queen, Margaret of Anjou, and her consort Henry VI., wrought in the tapestry, must daily have attracted her eyes, and inspired mournful re- flections on the calamities of royalty. But Margaret of An- jou was wont to call " Coventry her safe harbour," so well assured was she of the loyal devotion of the then chivalric citizens there. It is possible a similar meed of sympathy might have been accorded to the fair and unfortunate Scottish Sovereign, had she possessed thelike opportunitiesof exerting her eloquence and the influence of her feminine charms ; but as she was carefully secluded from every eye, and represented as a dangerous enemy to the established faith, and the rival of their own well-beloved and popular Sovereign, they acted as beseemed their duty to Elizabeth, and worked dili- gently, like good Protestants, in repairing the broken walls of the town, in order to defend it from the apprehended assaults of the Popish rebels, whose sacrilegious outrages on the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, at Durham, had excited just indignation, and greatly prejudiced the cause of the Eoman Catholic heiress of the realm, though she was powerless to prevent these manifestations of antagonism to the established worship. The citizens kept watch and ward at the gates night and day, and no stranger was sufi'ered to approach the purlieus of St Mary's Hall. Yet in spite of all this vigilance, and the precautions adopted by her keepers, Mary contrived to carry on a correspondence with her betrothed lover in the Tower of London, and also with the friendly French ambassador, i The means whereby the captive Queen efi'ected her purpose it would be difficult to conjecture; certainly not by gold, being wholly destitute of money, for she received none from Scotland, and her dower-lands in France were at that time overrun by the Admiral Coligni, and devastated by his followers ; while the King of France, so far from having it in his power to advance any part of her pension, was in the greatest pecuniary difficulties himself. During her compulsory abode at Coventry, Mary's con- stancy to Norfolk was put to an unexpected test. The 1 Despatches of La Mothe Fgnelon^ vol. iii. p. 23-25. MARY STUART. 47 Earl of Huntingdon, who, notwithstanding her unconcealed aversion to him, endeavoured to establish himself on confi- dential terms with her, delivered a message to her from his brother-in-law, the Earl of Leicester, offering to procure her liberation from durance, and to accomplish her restoration to her royal office, pi'ovided she would break her engagement to the Duke of Norfolk/ and accept him for her consort instead. Mary, not less surprised at this proposal than when the favourite of the English queen was first named as a candidate for her hand, replied, " that she had no thoughts of marriage, and that she understood the Earl of Leicester made far different pretensions. Moreover, if she were to gainsay the wishes of those lords who had written to her in favour of Norfolk, she feared she should offend them ; and as the Earl of Leicester was himself one of them, he could not fail to conceive a very bad opinion of her if she did." Huntingdon, however, continued to press his brother- in-law's suit, and required her to give a more particular reply. " If the Queen of England, and those of her nobles who proposed the Duke of Norfolk to me, think it not good for the matter to proceed, I am fully resolved never to wed an Englishman," said Mary. Huntingdon, then affecting the tone of friendship, said " she was right, for all the nation inclined to the same opinion." 2 He recommended to her consideration a joint treaty between England and Scot- land for the establishment of the reformed faith, according to the worship of the Church of England ; a firm league between the two realms ; and for her to consent to an act for settling the succession of the crown of England after her demise on the nearest heir-male, reckoning himself, as the representative of George Duke of Clarence, the most direct. ^ He suggested, also, that the King of France should be asked to depute commissioners to assist in arranging an 1 Despatches of La Mothe Fen^lon, vol. iii. p. 23-25. 2 Mary's Letter to Norfolk— Cotton MS. Calig. B. ix. 1345. * Elizabeth had herself, in the early part of her reign, conceived some uneasiness on account of his pretensions, which she vented in the incivility to his Countess, of which he thus complains in a letter to Leicester : " At my wife's last being at Court to do her duty as became her, it pleased her Majesty to give her a privy nip concerning myself, whereby I perceive she hath some jealous conceit of me." — History of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. 48 MARY STUAET. amicable treaty between her and her subjects for her restora- tion, and an impartial investigation of the facts connected with the death of the late King her husband. Nevertheless he took every opportunity of earnestly and perseveringly renewing the suit of his brother-in-law for her hand. Elizabeth was at that time engaged in a treaty with the Court of France for a marriage with Henry Duke of Anjou ;i . therefore Leicester, perceiving that his ambitious hopes of becoming her husband, or even of continuing to hold the pre- eminent place in her favour, were likely to be destroyed, made this covert attempt to renew his addresses to the younger and fairer rival Queen. If, however, the upstart favourite of for- tune, who, without any other merit than personal beauty, had acquired unbounded wealth and honours through the lavish bounty of his partial Sovereign, imagined that Mary of Scotland, as a discrowned, calumniated, and oppressed cap- tive, would listen to his addresses a whit more encourag- ingly in the Black Bull Inn or the Mayoress's Parlour at Coventry, than she had done in her glorious palaces of Holyrood, Linlithgow, and Stirling, surrounded by all the glittering attributes of royal state, he little understood the spirit of her to whom he presumed to aspire ; and failing to win, persecuted with the deadly malice of a disappointed man. Mary's deciphered letter to the imprisoned Norfolk, under these circumstances, will be read with lively interest in connection with this obscure but well-authenticated passage in her personal history. It commences with allu- sions to some misrepresentations that had been made to Norfolk of her conduct and intentions in regard to him, at which he had taken umbrage. " I have sworn to you," she says, " that I never meant such a thing, for I feared your evil opinion of me. You assure me of the contrary— I am most glad thereof. And therefore when you say you will be to me as I will, then shall you remain mine own good lord ; as you subscribed once, with God's grace, and I will remain yours faithfully as I have promised." 2 This is in refer- ' Despatches of La Mothe Fenglon, vol. iii. pp. 24, 25. Camden. ' Mary to the Duke of Norfolk, Coventry-Cotton. Lib. Calig. B. ix. 345. I MAEY STUAET. 49 ence to the contract of marriage which thej had mutuallj signed and executed. " And on that condition/' con- tinues Mary, " I took the diamond from my Lord Boyd, which I shall keep unseen about my neck till I give it again to the owner of it and me both. I am bold with you, because you put all to my choice. Let me have some comfortable answer again, that I may be sure you will mistrust me no more, and that you will not forget your own, nor have anything to bind you from her, for I am resolved that weal nor woe shall never remove me from you, if you cast me not away." After a little more tender expostu- lation, she communicates the matrimonial overture that Huntingdon had made to her on Leicester's behalf, and mentions that Huntingdon was then about to proceed to the Court, leaving her at Coventry under the charge of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. She suspects Huntingdon's journey boded no good either to her or Norfolk. " Now Huntingdon goes up," she says, " beware of him. He loves neither you nor me. He said oft, ' it were a pity you should live ; ' now he speaks better, which puts me in some hope of relief. He spake these days past of Leicester's marriage with me ; but I told him ' that I had once taken his counsel [Leicester's] in your favour, and if that might not come to pass, he [Leicester] should never be cumbered with marrying me.' Forgive me if I have been too plain ; for I will never have them enter into that practice again, for he [Huntingdon] spake four sundry times in it. But now he laid a wager with me 'that you should have me.' And whereas he said afore, ' that the Queen of England would never let you out unless you refused me,' I said, ' You were not worth a want if you did, and that shortly you should be out.' I dare not trust him. But it did me good to hear it" — meaning Huntingdon's facetious bet on the probability of the marriage being accomplished. " Much more," continues she, endearingly, " if you may have your liberty and your own [herself] granted ; and if you forget me, yet will I be glad of your weal. You may VOL. VII. D 50 MARY STUAET. have better, but never anything straighter bound to obey and love you than yours, faithfully, till death." ^ Among the annoyances of which Mary had cause to complain, were the intemperate attacks that were made on her in the pulpit, by certain of the puritanical zealots patro- nised by the Earl of Huntingdon. She thus alludes to these aggressions in the autograph postscript of a letter written in her broken English to her representative at Elizabeth's court : — " I am advertised that a preacher of Litchfield has plainly preached in very outrageous and vile terms of me by my name. I would you knew if that is admitted to be so done, and if any order will be put therein in case I might get the proof of it ; but fldgn (complain) nothing till you be assured that, if such a thing be, fault be found in it ; for I cannot believe that any prince can allow evil to be spoken of a princess, and one of their blood. As soon as you may, advertise me, and I shall find the means to send you the truth thereof At Coventri, some lewd preaching was before my Lord Huntingdon. Albeit, it was told me ' it was meant for me/ I would not take it, because I knew my innocency; but where I am named, unless it be some tolerance, I think it is too much," ^ At Coventry, Mary spent the joyless birthday on which she completed the twenty-seventh year of her age, also her melancholy Christmas — it being found expedient, on account of the stanch Protestantism of the citizens, and their loyalty to Elizabeth, to detain her there till after the suppression of the Northern Eebellion. The details of that ill-judged and most disastrous enterprise belong to general history .2 Sufiice it to say, that if Mary's advice had been regarded, it would not have been risked — that it ended in the exile, ruin, or execution of some of her warmest friends in England, paralysed the hearts of others, and ' Mary to the Duke of Norfolk, Coventry— Cotton. Lib. Calig. B. ix. 345. * LabanoflF, vol. iii. p. 1 7. ^ Full particulars of the defeat, dispersion, and punishment of the rebels will be found in Sir Cuthbert Sharj)'s Memorials of the Northern Eebellion, a most curious and interesting woi k. MAKY STUAET. 51 placed her own life in imminent jeopardy. The sword was indeed suspended over her neck hj a single hair during the whole of that agitating crisis. A warrant for put- ting her to death without the ceremony of judicial proceed- ings, was prepared bj Ellizabeth's ministers, received the royal sanction, and passed the Great Seal.^ The following ominous lines flowed from Elizabeth's pen as the climax of a barbarous sonnet perpetrated by her on the subject of the said rebellion, which she was persuaded had been incited by her captive cousin, — " No foreign banish'd wight shall anchor in this port, Our realm it brooks no stranger's face, let them elsewhere resort. Our rusty sword, with rest, shall first the edge employ- To poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for joy." A most sanguinary polling of tops took place, in com- pliance with Her Majesty's desire. Yet Mary's head was spared at that time, not from feelings of queenly magnanimity or the tender relentings of womanly com- passion towards woman, but because a more convenient and less startling method of taking her life had been de- vised, whereby the responsibility, as well as the odium of shedding the blood of an anointed Sovereign, would fall on another. The Regent Moray solicited Elizabeth to send Mary back to Scotland. Elizabeth replied, " That if he would come himself to Hull to receive her, she should be brought there and delivered into his own hands, to be conveyed from that port to Scotland."^ Moray stood in too tottering a position to undertake any such expedition — forsaken by the most respectable member of his faction, the Earl of Atholl, deserted by Kirkaldy of Grange and Lethington, hated by the chivalric portion of the nobles for his treachery and ingratitude to his sister, Sovereign, and benefactress, and despised by all true Scots for his subserviency to England, it was only the possession of ia strong military force, the revenues of the Crown, and the spoils of the loyal friends ' Letter of Leicester — Tytler's Appendix, vol. vii. p. 383. ^ Eesume Chronologique. Par Prince Alexandre de LabanoIT, St Peters- burg, p. 50. 52 MARY STUART. of Mary, that enabled him to support his usurpation. To fetch her back himself in the manner proposed would have been to devote himself to popular execration and popular vengeance. He therefore stipulated for her to be consigned to his tender mercies by an English army, whose presence he knew would be required to support him and his party. While' the negotiations for this occult scheme were secretly progressing, a daring enterprise for the rescue of the captive Queen was devised by the indefatigable Owen, who proposed to lie in wait with a resolute party of horse- men to intercept and seize her on her return from Coventry to Tutbury, and to carry her by Banbury and Oxford into \ Sussex to Arundel Castle, of which the Earl of Arundel's cook had the keeping, and would receive her, and help to convey her into France.^ Horses were provided for the adventure by a gentleman at Oxford. Mary, startled at the humble station of the paladins of low degree who had combined for her deliverance, replied, when their design was communicated to her, " that if the Duke of Norfolk or the Earl of Arundel would appoint a knight to take it in hand, she would adventure it, otherwise she durst not." This foolish prejudice prevented the execution of a project far more likely to have been carried on successfully than if it had originated with nobles, who were always surrounded by spies. Norfolk, as usual, disapproved of any plan for carry- ing her out of the kingdom, and it was abandoned. Huntingdon and Shrewsbury apprise Cecil, on the 19th of December, " that a packet of letters had arrived for the Scottish Queen, which they had read and delivered to her, all but those in cipher ; and that they also detained books and wine that had been sent to her, whereat she is highly offended." 2 The decipherment of these letters evidently caused the hasty mandate for Mary's immediate removal from Coventry back to her old prison at Tutbury. Shrews- bury's observations, in his reply to Cecil, are curious, show- ing that the unjust detention of Mary in England was the " Murdin, p. 20. * State Paper Office MS. unpublished, — the Earls of Shrewsbury and Huntingdon to Cecil, Dec. 19, 1569. MAEY STUAET. 53 source of the most oppressive and injurious imposition by- Elizabeth's ministers on English subjects. "Alluding to the Queen's Majesty's letters, which we received with yours on the 24th of this month, I, the Earl of Shrewsbury, did give forth- with order for the preparing and making ready the Castle of Tutbury as well as might be, for the placing eftsoons the Queen of Scots there, and doubt not but such diligence shall be used as the same shall be in order for that purpose against Monday next (though it be very hard, as ye did friendly answer), and no less chargeable upon this sudden, sooner than that cannot be made anything meet for want of all provision and other things necessary, and on that day, being the 2d of January, we do firmly determine to conduct her from hence with such good speed, God willing, as she may be there the same night. But now, for our discharge of conscience, we thought it needful to advertise hereby, that not only her Majesty's tenants about Tutbury, also others the inhabitants in these parts, were so burdened at this Queen's last lying there as it is lamentable to remember ; and yet I, the Earl of Shrewsbury, do assure you that they were never moved thereto but upon mere necessary causes. Truly they will not continue in serving with their carriages without great exclamation. Neither, to say truly, are they able, their beasts be so weak, the ways so deep and foul, and the fuel so far off to be fetched." * Mary was removed at the time appointed, and, not- withstanding the severity of the weather, and " the pain in her craig" of which the poor sufferer complained, was compelled to perform the whole journey in one day.^ The curious old portrait of Mary in the Mayoress's Par- lour, which was probably painted during her confinement there, bears unmistakable traces of ill health, and attenua- tion of person from pain of body and mind. ^ State Paper Office MS., unpublished — Shrewsbury to Cecil, December 20, 1569. ^ State Paper Office Correspondence. The following entry in the Town- Book of Coventry appears during the mayoralty of Richard Hawton : " In this year, 1569, was a great rebellion in the north, on which account Mary Queen of Scots was removed from Tutbury to Coventry, and there kept prisoner in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Hunting- don at the Bull Inn from St Andrew's tide until Candlemas, during which time the citizens kept watch and ward, day and night, at every gate, that none passed by without examination." Another entry in the Town-Book of Coventry states " that William Smalwood, draper, being mayor, 1566, in his year was Mary Queen of Scots brought to Coventry, and kept prisoner in the Mayoress's Parlour, and from thence removed to Tutbury." A mis- take in the date, which, strange to say, is repeated by Dr Thomas in bis edition of Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i., p. 1 50, and even by the accu- rate Hearne in his edition of Fordun's ScoticJironicon, p. 1457 ; only the latter makes it occur in 1567 — a year later indeed, but while Mary was a captive in Lochleven. 54 MARY STUAET. She arrived at Tutbury Castle, January 2, without any attempt at rescue on the road. Whether her hopes had been excited by a secret intimation of the prepara- tions that had been made by her humble but warm- hearted friends for her rescue, it is impossible to say ; but that she was painfully aware of the disgraceful traffic of her ruthless foes in the English Cabinet, for her surrender into the hands of the traitors who had usurped the govern- ment of her realm, is perfectly apparent from the following passage in her letter to La Mothe Fenelon, written a few days after her return to Tutbury : — " The answer you tell me was made you at your last audience by the Queen, my good sister, has greatly pleased me, and has diminished the alarm in which I have been some days past, and am even now, on account of the infor- mation that has been given me, that he who calls himself the Abbot of Dunfermline, practised lately by all possible means with the same lady, my good sister, and her Council, to have me sent to Scotland, and delivered into the hands of my rebels. What has passed and been concluded among them must be better known to you than to me. I am apprised that another messenger from my said rebels has arrived there eight days ago, whom I cannot but think has been sent over on the same evil errand, or a worse." ^ The warning Mary had received was correct, her appre- hensions only too well founded. Sir Nicholas Elphinstone was the bearer of a petition,2 signed by the Regent and his creatures, representing to Elizabeth, " that as Mary was the fountain from whom all the commotions, seditions, and prac- tices that troubled England did flow, so her remaining in that realm gave her opportunity to continue them ; and that the best means of bringing quiet to both countries, and pro- viding for the security of the religion, was to send her back to Scotland, where she would be cut off from all means of continuing her correspondence with foreign princes and their ambassadors." A requisition for her blood was at the same time sent ' Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 9. * State Paper Office MSS. undated, but indorsed in Cecil's hand. MART STUART. 55 by Jolin Knox, to Cecil, in a mystical letter, exhorting him " to be thankful to God for benefits received,'' mean- ing the suppression of the northern rebellion ; and warn- ing him " that, if he struck not at the root, the branches, which appeared to be broken, would bud more quickly than men could believe, and with greater force than would be wished;" adding emphatically, "God grant you wisdom. In haste of [at] Edinburgh, the second of Januar. Yours to command in God." Signed " John Knox, with his one foot in the grave."' ^ A striking exemplification this of the ruling passion strong in death ! Knox's enthusiastic demand for the slaughter of his captive Sovereign was reiterated and enforced by Elphinstone, in his conferences with Eliza- beth and her ministers. He also entreated her Majesty to consider the " dangers that might ensue to both realms by the increase of the factions which favoured Papistry and the Queen of Scots' title, unless the Regent were properly supported with arms, money, and ammunition, which, if she would accord, he and his friends would con- tinue, on reasonable wages, to serve her as they had done their native Princess in Scotland. That the heads of all the troubles that had lately disquieted her were in her power, and if she did not provide a remedy, whatever mischief fol- lowed would rest on herself" Moreover, the Earl of Nor- thumberland having fled into Scotland, and taken refuge at the Harlaw, the fortalice of Hector Armstrong, fami- liarly called Hecky Armstrong, a Border brigand, had been basely sold for a sum of gold to the Regent, who proposed to deliver him up to Elizabeth in exchange for Queen Mary.2 ' The original of this document is preserved in the State Paper Office. So also are the instructions of Elphinstone, which were brought to light by the researches of the late Patrick Eraser Tytler. See Hist, of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 248-250. * The Earl of Westmoreland fell into better hands than his luckless coadjutor Northumberland. The bold Buccleuch and the loyal Kerr of Fernyhirst hospitably welcomed him, and not only refused to give him up, but showed their determination to defend him from all pursuit of the Queen of England and her creature the Regent. The popular feeling on the Border is thus described by Constable, an English spy : At supper I heard voxpopuli, that the Lord Regent would not, for his own honour, nor 56 MARY STUART. Meantime the bereaved mother had been occupying her time and attention in her English prison in preparing a pi'e- sent of clothes, toys, and other little comforts and indulgences for her boy, that innocent rival of her title, in whose name the ungrateful usurper of her government was, she knew, carrying on an iniquitous treaty with her royal jailer, of which the object was her murder. She wrote from her dolorous prison at Tutbury to Lesley : " We remain still in great pain to understand what way of practice Elphin- stone can make at Court for our delivering into Moray's hands; and of his answer he gets thereupon that may come to your knowledge, we pray you to write to us by some servant. We have despatched, likewise, our servants, James Lawder and Alexander Gray, toward Scotland, with some open letters to our faithful subjects, and graith for the Prince our son." ^ While Mary was penning, on the 24th of January, her agitated inquiries as to the proceedings of the traitor en- voy at the English Court for her delivery into Moray's hands, her fraternal foe had been suddenly and awfully cut off, in the midst of his career of successful ambition and crime, by the terrible vengeance of one of the victims of his injustice, and was then lying cold on a bloody bier in the palace of Linlithgow. Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, one of the loyal gentlemen of that name who drew the sword in Queen Mary's cause at Langside, had been admitted to quarter by the victorious E-egent, at the termination of that disastrous conflict, and liberated, among many others of the van- quished party, but was deprived of his estates. His lady, flattering herself that Woodhouselee, being her personal for the honour of his country, deliver the Earls, if he had them both, unless it were to have the Queen delivered to him ; and if he would agree to make that change the Borderers would start up in his contrary, and rescue both the Queen and the lords from him, for such shame was never done in Scotland ; and that he had better eate his own luggs than come again to sack Fernyhirst. Hector of the Harlaw's head was wished to be eaten among us at supper ' This maledictory wish passed into a proverb, and " Hecky's dish " is still alluded to in reprobation of treachery. — Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 118. ' Labanoff. MARY STUART. • 57 inheritance, was not included in her husband's forfeiture, re- mained in her patrimonial mansion. But the Eegent paid small regard to the rights of personal property. His confede- rate, Sir John Bellenden, the Justice-Clerk, had performed much dirty work in the accomplishment of the revolution, and, like Sir James Balfour, expected large reward for his services ; so the lands and tenements of Woodhouselee were bestowed on him in part payment. When he came to take possession of his new acquisition, he found the lady of Woodhouselee was still occupying the house, and in no con- dition to vacate it, having only the day before brought her infant into the world ; but, regardless of the common feel- ings of humanity, and deaf to all remonstrances and prayers, he violated the sanctuary of the lying-in chamber, and thrust the young mother out of the house into the deep snow, unde- fended from the inclemency of a mid-winter night. The next morning she was found wandering through the woods in frenzy, which only terminated in death ! ' Who can wonder that her husband, infuriated by an outrage like this, resolved on avenging her sufferings and death ? An appeal to the laws of Scotland would, he knew, be unavail- ing, so grossly violated as they had been both by the Re- gent and the great law-officer who had committed the crime. Bellenden, at Woodhouselee, was out of his reach, for Bothwellhaugh, being an outlaw, was concealed for safety of his life in the house of his kinsman, Archbishop Hamil- ton, at Linlithgow. The Regent Moray, whom he regarded as the primary cause of what had occurred, crossing his path in the maddening excitement of his rage and grief, was doomed to pay the penalty of a crime which appeared to place its authors out of the pale of humanity. Under- standing that the Regent was to pass through Linlithgow on his way from Stirling to Edinburgh, on the 23d of January, Bothwellhaugh made his preparations for ven- geance and for flight. The house in which he was hidden fronted the High Street, and, by the projection of a por- ' Historie of James the Sext. Tytler's History of Scotland.— This unfor- tunate lady was the daughter of Oliver Sinclair, the favourite of James V. 58 MARY STUART. tion of the building, somewhat narrowed the thoroughfare. This he knew would be favourable for his purpose, hy im- peding the passage of the cavalcade at that point where the pressure of the crowd would cause the horsemen to ride slowly, and not more than two abreast. At the back of the house was a walled garden, with a wicket-gate opening into the fields, in the direction of the old Glasgow road. Perceiving that the wicket was too low to admit a horseman to pass at full speed, he removed the lintel, and having saddled and bridled the swiftest steed in the Arch- bishop's stable in readiness to mount, he barricaded the front entrance, and equipped himself for the journey. Booted, spurred, and armed, he took his stand in a wooden gallery with latticed windows, that overlooked the street, to await the coming of the Regent and his train. Having used the precaution of spreading a feather-bed on the pavement of the gallery to muffle his tread, and of hang- ing up a black cloth to prevent his shadow from being observed as he passed the windows, he cut a small hole in the cloth, to enable him to take aim, just large enough to admit the muzzle of his harquebuss, which he loaded with four bullets. But though his preparations were thus covertly arranged, he had made no secret of his intention, having openly sworn to avenge the sujBferings and death of his murdered wife " on the bastard Regent." Predictions of Moray's cutting off by a violent and sudden death had been rife in Scotland for some time. Several of the unfortunate old women, whom he had consigned to the flames on accusa- tions of witchcraft, had avenged themselves by prophesying evil against him. One of the name of M'Niven, at whose execution he presided in person, hearing him order a bag of gunpowder to be placed by the faggot and tar-barrel pre- pared for her immolation, bitterly exclaimed : " What need o' a' this wastry o' powther ; less than half an ounce shall be enough for my Lord of Moray." ^ 'This oracular denuncia- tion was verified by the vengeful harquebuss of Bothwell- haugh, on the 23d of January. Business of ominous import to Queen Mary had been transacted by the Regent ^ Adam Blackwood's Life of Mary Queen of Scots. MARY STUART. 59 that morning, at Stirling, with Sir Henry Yates and Sir William Drury, Elizabeth's envoys for concluding the negotiation for "their secret matter." ^ The farce of demanding hostages and guarantees for the security of Mary's life, which, to save appearances to the world, Eliza- beth had hitherto done, was abandoned. The great obstacle to the accomplishment of the treaty was thus removed; but as Moray could do nothing without the sanction of his coadjutors in the government, Morton, Mar, Lindsay, Ruthven, Mak- gill, and their colleagues, they were convened to meet him in council for the final settlement of this important matter, on the Sunday, in Edinburgh. It was then Saturday, and Moray was more than half-way on his journey thither, exulting in the result of the conference at Stirling. At Linlithgow he was met by John Hume, one of his friends, and entreated not to ride through the High Street, for there was a villain lying in wait there to take his life.^ But the cavalcade had already entered the long, narrow street, and the pressure of the crowd, while it prevented Moray from changing his course, compelled him to ride slowly; and this enabled Bothwellhaugh to take his aim with unerring accuracy. The bullet entered the Eegent's body below his- doublet belt, and wounded him mortally. Bothwellhaugh leaped on horseback, and arrived unscathed at Hamilton, distancing all pursuit. ^ Moray expired the same evening, in the for- tieth year of his age.* 1 Keralio's Elizabeth, vol. iii. p. 444. Murdin. See also Killigrewe's correspondence with Cecil, in Murdin, where the articles of this murderous pact are unfolded. * Ibid. Tytler. Lingard. 3 Finally he took refuge in France, where, being offered a large reward if he would undertake the assassination of Coligni, he repelled the prof- fered bribe with noble indignation. "I have avenged myself on the villain who made my home desolate," he replied, " and I glory in the deed ; but I will not condescend to the trade of an assassin. Coligni never injured me ; why, then, should I seek his life 1 " When James VI. obtained some degree of freedom and power on the fall of Morton, Bothwellhaugh ventured to return to Scotland ; and being introduced into the royal presence, knelt and implored his pardon for the slaughter of the Regent Moray, " Pardon for his slaughter ! " exclaimed the young monarch with great vivacity : " God's blessing on him whose son ye be ; for an ye had not taken the life of yon traitor, I had never lived to wear my own crown." One of Scott's most pathetic ballads celebrates the wrongs and revenge of Both- wellhaugh. * Moray has been highly lauded by partisan historians. Dr M'Crie de- 60 MARY STUAET. One year only had passed away since Mary's sisterly love and womanly pity had successfully interfered for the pre- servation of Moray's life, from the determinate purpose of the northern aristocracy, to intercept and slay him and his companions in iniquity, on their journey back to Scotland. This generous grace he had requited, as soon as he reached Berwick in safety, by suggesting, in his letter to Cecil, the expediency of her murder under the guarded expression of " taking measures for her surety^ in order to secure the peaceful continuance of Elizabeth's reign." His breach of all his promises to his royal sister, his treacherous arrest of her deputies, Herrles and Kilwinning, his betrayal of his friend Norfolk, and his nefarious treaty for getting Mary into his own hands once more, in order to take her life by the insulting mockery of a trial, whereof the result was pre- ordained, require no comment. The pretended confessions put forth by him in the name of Nicholas Hubert or French Paris, after he had hanged that wretched man, and burned Sir William Stuart at St Andrews, lest he should disclose the revelations made to him by Hubert on their voyage from Norway, were evidently prepared for the purpose of scribes him as the darling of the people, in defiance of the testimony borne by his own friends and eulogists, Buchanan and Sir James Melville, of his unpopularity. M'Crie also extols his justice, moderation, mercy, and disinterestedness in pecuniary matters, although the contrary was notorious, as existing records prove. His avarice was indeed insatiable, of which his conduct to the Countess of Buchan is a proof. He did not even refi'ain from robbing his nephew, Francis Stuart, the orphan son of his brother John, Pi'ior of Coldingham, of his patrimony, by obtaining from his admin- istrator, Lumisden, Rector of Cleish, a grant to him and his heirs-male, in the name of the unconscious infant, of the whole estates of the Abbey of Kelso ; comprehending the town of Kelso, and many lands, mills, fisheries, and other property in the four shires of Roxburgh, Berwick, Dumfries, and Peebles. This passed the Great Seal 10th of December 1569. He also compelled the aged Pati'ick Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, to resign to him the whole of the lands, fisheries, ports, and other appanages of that diocese, together with the lordship and castle of Spynie, its lake, wood, and revenues. He endowed his second daughter Annabella, a little girl under six years old, with the wardship of the Lord Sanquhar's lands and castles, to be held by her during the minority of the infant heir, as well as his guardianship and marriage. The young lady did not survive long enough to derive any benefit from the paternal arrangement of the Good Regent in her favour. — Chalmers' Memoir of the Regent Moray — Appendix, note ; vol. iii. p. 390. MAEY STUAET. 61 being produced, in a mock court of justice, for Mary's cri- mination, if his own hasty summons to a higher tribunal had not rendered all his guilty projects abortive. The person of the Regent Moray has been as much mis- taken, in modern times, as his character. The engravings that have been published as his portrait, by Lodge, M'Crie, and others, are erroneous, having, in reality, been taken from that of King James Vl.^ The only authentic portrait of the Regent Moray in existence is in the collection of his descendant and representative the present Earl of Moray, at Donibristle House, where it was discovered a few years ago, with that of his Countess, concealed behind a panel. Moray is there represented as handsome, but with a sinis- ter expression of countenance, bearing, in features and com- plexion, a decided resemblance to his great-uncle Henry VIII. His hair is light-red, his eyes grey, his nose regu- larly formed, mouth small, with thin lips twisted into a deceitful smile ; the face is very smooth, fair, and of a square contour ; in short, a Tudor in all respects, but with the air of a diplomatic priest rather than a soldier. He wears a black-velvet flat cap, richly decorated with pearls, and is habited in a closely-fitting black- velvet doublet, ornamented with three rows of large pearl buttons. His Countess is also dressed in black velvet, but loaded with jewels. Her little black-velvet hat, of the fashion familiar to us in some of Queen Mary's portraits, is surmounted with a diadem- frontlet of gems, every alternate ornament being a minia- ture of the crown of Scotland, presumptuously assumed by her as the consort of him who exercised the power of the realm ; that power, of which the regal garland was the bauble type. Moray did not arrogate to himself the toys of royalty, being satisfied with the substance, whereof they are the shadow. But ladies love toys, and his Countess gratified her pride and vanity by flaunting 'in the regal 1 The portraits of James VI. in youth and early manhood are almost as handsome as those of his son Charles I. Those who compare his effigies on his gold bonnet-piece with the so-called portraits of the Regent Moray, will perceive it is the same person. 62 MARY STUAET. decorations belonging to her Sovereign, which she obsti- nately refused to return to their rightful owner, after the " good Regent's " death had deprived her of the slightest pretext for detaining either the crown-jewels or Queen Mary's personal property. Mary received the news of the tragic fate of her fraternal supplanter with a burst of tears, forgetting for the time his many trespasses against her, his ingratitude, treachery, and those worst and bitterest aggravations, the irreparable injuries he had done her by his attempts to justify his trea- son and selfish ambition by calumniating her. She expressed " sorrow for his sudden and untimely cutting off, wishing rather," she said, " that he might have been spared for repentance and acknowledgment of his faults," ^ It is easy to perceive that the remarkable letter she addressed on this occasion to his widow, Lady Moray, formerly her best beloved friend, was written after the first gush of tender com- passion had been succeeded by reflections on the marvellous preservation of her own life from the murderous machinations which had been so strangely interrupted by his tragic death. It is a document that affords a natural picture of the conflict- ing feelings with which that event agitated her heart. " Mt Lady Murray, " Albeit your late husband had so unnaturally and unthankfully offended us, in many sorts, who had promoted him to all honour, and done him so many good deeds undeserved at our hands, and never merit[ed], yea, of a stranger, let be a brother (as he had the honour to be so named), to have rewarded with sic ingratitude as he did to us, which God of his judgment has shown on him for his severeness (indeed against our will). We desired not his blood shed, for we had rather he sould have lived to recognise his duty and come in repentance for his great and heavy offences made to us, not to have been so miserably cut away, if we might have stopped the same. Our nature will not permit us to forget what he was to us in blood, but maun be sorry for his death ." 2 Mary had, however, great cause of displeasure against Lady Mora/ herself, for the ungrateful return she had made for the favour and affection that had excited the jealous dis- ' Lesley's Negotiations — Tytler's History of Scotland. ^ Original unpublished documents in the archives of the Earl of Moray at Donibristle House, communicated by his Lordship's brother, the Hon. John Stuart. MARY STUART. 63 content of the petulant Darnlej, as well as the many boun- ties she had lavished upon Jier in the days of prosperity. Indeed, the number and value of the jewels bequeathed to Lady Moray, in the testament executed by Mary when not expecting to survive the birth of her child, lately discovered in the Royal Eecord Office, sufficiently proves the place that lady occupied in her regard. The stern tone, there- fore, in which the captive Queen, in the next paragraph, demands the restitution of the costly portion of her regal and personal decorations, appropriated by Lady Moray, can scarcely be thought improper. " Since the which, we are informed, ye have tane in possession certain of our jewels, such as our H of dyamant and ruby,i with a number of other dyamante, ruby, perles, and gold-work, whereof we have the memoir to lay to your charge. Which jewels, incontinent, after the sight hereof, ye sail deliver to our right trusty cousins and counsellors the Earl of Huntley, our lieutenant, and my Lord Setoun, who will, on so doing, give you discharge of the same in our name, and will move us to have the more pity of you and your children. Otherwise, we assure you, ye shall neither h'uik [en- joy] lands nor goods in that realm, but to have our indignation, as deserves. Thus wishing you to weigh with good conscience, we commit you to God. " From Tutbury, the 28th day of March, 1570." The above, though in the Queen's name, is written by her secretary ; the postscript is in her own hand, — " As I mind to pity you in your adversity, if you do your duty, so be sure, if you hold anything pertaining to me from me, you and your bairns and maintainors shall feel my displeasure heavily, neither is wrongful gear [or goods] profitable ; and so I will be to you as you shall deserve. " Marie R."^ * The great H of diamonds and rubies, particularly demanded by Mary, was an ornament for the breast in that form, commonly called " the Great Harry," having been originally given by Henry VII. to his daughter Mar- garet, on her marriage to James IV., as part of her rich bridal outfit ; so that it really formed no part of the crown-jewels of Scotland, but was Mary's private property, who had a peculiar value for this Tudor heir- loom, * The original, in broken Scotch, is as follows : " As I mynd to pitie yow in your adversite, gifF you doe your deuti, so be sur, iff you hald ani thing pertins me from me, yow and your birnes and meinteners schal feel my displesour heavilie, nor is wrangous geir profitable ; and so I will be to you as you schal deserve. " Marie R." Addressed — " To the Ladye Murraye." 64 MAEY STUART. Lady Moray paid no attention to Queen Mary's request for the return of her jewels, well knowing that she was in no condition for enforcing her demands, and that her threats were harmless. The tender yearnings of strong natural affection, which drew tears and lamentations from Mary for the tragic fate of her ungrateful brother, unseasonable as David's demon- strations of paternal grief for Absalom, when his deliverance from the too well-beloved traitor was announced to him, were in like manner subdued by reason and considerations of political expediency. Bothwellhaugh had previously lost his all in her service, and Avhen his utter destitution was pleaded to her by her faithful minister at the Court of France, in August 1571, a year and a half after the slaugh- ter of the Eegent, she replied : " What Bothwellhaugh did was without my command/ for which I am more obliged to him than if I had been consulted. I am expecting the papers for the receipt of my dower, and will not forget a pension for him.'' Nothing but Mary's detention in an English prison prevented her restoration to her throne on the death of Moray; for deeply had the change from her gentle and prosperous government been mourned, while the three sore visitations of famine, pestilence, and the sword had successively visited the land, and filled it with mourning and desolation. When the plague was in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1569, the Good Regent had ordered that every family in which it appeared should remove their sick to the Boroughmuir under penalty of death, and actually hanged one tender-hearted husband for presuming to conceal the fact that his wife was attacked with the pestilence, and nursing her in his own house, instead of haling her forth to perish miserably among the unsheltered victims of this barbarous sanitary law. The death of Moray, which was greatly lamented by Elizabeth, disconcerted her vindictive project for ridding herself of her captive cousin through his assistance. In the first transports of her exasperation, she caused the ^ LabanofiT, vol. iii. p. 354. MARY STUAET. 65 Bishop of Ross to be arrested, and committed to the cus- tody of the Bishop of London, by whom he was kept for six weeks in very strict confinement, without being examined or given the slightest intimation of his offence.^ The King of France had sent over M. de Montlouet on an especial mission of comfort to Queen Mary, with instructions, after he had seen and conferred with her, to proceed to Scotland and endeavour to adjust an amicable treaty with the rebel lords for her restoration ; but Elizabeth angrily refused to grant him access to the captive Queen to deliver his letters and messages, much less to perform his mission to the Scotch lords.^ She complained bitterly, in the second audience granted by her to Montlouet and La Mothe Fenelon, of the interference of the King of France in Mary's behalf, and spoke of the murder of the Regent Moray as if it had been the work of his unfortunate sister. She even went so far as to intimate her belief " that the Queen of Scots would procure some one to shoot her also, with a hagbut, though she had given her such good treat- ment, and at such an expense, that she knew the Scotch could not afford to do the like." In regard to the expense, Elizabeth had recently been startled, as well she might, with the enormous charges in the Earl of Shrewsbury's accounts for the wine which he alleged was consumed by the Queen of Scots and her household. " Truly," writes he to Cecil, " two tuns in a month have not hitherto sufficed ordinarily, besides that that is occupied at times for her bathings and suchlike uses, which, seeing I cannot by any means conveniently diminish, my earnest trust and desire is, that you will now consider me with such larger proportion, in this case, as shall seem good unto your friendly wisdom.^ In consequence of this statement, whereof the purpose was obviously to obtain an increase of salary, poor Mary has been gravely accused, by a writer of dramatic poetry and romance, as a monster of ingratitude to her kind cousin, Queen Eliza- ' Lesley's Negotiations. ^ Despatches of La Motbe Fenelon, vol. iii. Lodge, vol. ii. p. 499. VOL. VII. E 0 66 MARY STUAET, beth, who generously provided her with board, lodging, and guards gratis ; and indulged her with the privilege of swallowing two butts of wine a-month, besides the luxury of bathing in the same costly fluid. Baths of Gascon wine were, according to the medical practice of the period, occasionally prescribed to the captive Queen in her severe illnesses by her physicians, for the purpose of stimulating the circulation and relieving the neuralgic agonies that had been entailed upon her by her confinement in the damp dilapidated apartments she was doomed to occupy in Tutbury Castle, together with deprivation of the active exercise in the open air to which she had been accus- tomed, necessary as they were to enable her to contend against a constitutional disposition to heart complaint and torpid liver. A gallop of a dozen miles a-day among the Derby hills, with hawk and hound, would have been more efficacious as a restorative to the languishing invalid than all the wine-baths in the world. The quantity of wine drank by her may be fairly estimated by the fact, that when she kept her royal state, and exercised hospi- tality to ambassadors and foreign princes in the festive halls of Holy rood and Stirling, one gallon a-day was the allowance for her table ; and as this included what was drank by her guests, only a very trifling portion could have been consumed by herself, and a remainder was probably left for the perquisite of cupbearers and butlers.l The eau sucrCj still the national beverage for ladies in France, called " sweet water" by the Scotch of her day, was her own drink, to which allusion is made in the self-accusation of Bothwell. Mary had forty attendants, all accustomed to drink the table- wine of France ; nevertheless this statement of the marvellous quantity of wine consumed by her must be regarded as a notable specimen of the conscientious accounts of a noble government-contractor in the golden days of good Queen Bess. Shrewsbury, the most avaricious of men, is said by Castelnau de Mauvissiere to have amassed no less a sum ' " Menu de la Maison de la Royne," July 1562. Par M. de Pin- quillon. The allowance for the table of the Countess of Mar, as state governess of the infant King, was precisely the same. MAEY STUART. 67 than 200,000 crowns by the profits he contrived to make of his office while the Queen of Scots was in his custody. In reply to the persevering remonstrances of the Court of France in behalf of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth instructed her ambassador. Sir Henry Norris, to present, in her name, a memorial of the offences committed by that Princess against her, commencing with the assumption of her arms and title when Dauphiness ; refusing to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh ; and marrying Darnley against her consent. Indeed, she roundly accuses the fair northern Sovereign, whose alliance was courted by the greatest Princes in Europe, of inveigling the inexperienced young man into Scotland, in order to beguile him into marriage, for the pur- pose of setting up a rival claim to the Crown of England. A specious statement of the dissensions between Mary and Darnley follows, these being represented as entirely her fault, and that he behaved in the most lowly and submissive manner to her, thus reversing Randolph's report : " The Queen of Scotland does everything in her power to please the Lord Darnley, and he will do nothing to oblige her."'-' The unscrupulous nature of Elizabeth's policy, in regard to Mary, can scarcely be demonstrated more clearly than by the numerous falsifications to which she resorts in this memorial, in the attempt to get up a case against her ; and it is certain that, if Mary had been really guilty of the crimes imputed to her, by those whose interest it was to calumniate her, there would have been no need of these. The circumstances which compelled her to submit to the marriage with Both- well, which her traitor lords had pledged themselves to accomplish, after they had, by their own votes in Parliament, confirmed his previous acquittal of Darnley's murder in the Justiciary Court at Edinburgh, where several of the parties who now denounced his trial as illegal sat as judges, are suppressed. The fact of her dismissing him at Carberry Hill, and voluntarily confiding her person to those who came to fight against him in preference to sharing his fortunes, is perverted into the untruth that, " being left by him lamentably in the field all desolate, she was taken to a 1 Complete Ambassador. 68 MAEY STUART. place of restraint." The verbal treaty, negotiated by Kirkaldy of Grange, between her and the rebel lords, their shameless breach of contract, and brutal usage of her in Edinburgh, are forgotten. Her son is falsely stated, in this memorial,^ to have been crowned with the approbation of the Parliament of Scotland, and also with her own consent, although no Parliament was convened till five months after his illegal coronation; and no one knew better than Elizabeth the disgraceful manner in which Mary's signature to the fraudulent deeds of abdication was extorted ; and she assumes to herself great credit for preventing the conspira- tors from shedding the blood of their unfortunate Queen. She asserts that the defeat of Mary's ai'my at Langside was because God fought against her, and says, that " when Mary landed in England, at a port where she was un- known, she dissembled her person for a time, and sought to conceal herself." It is scarcely necessary to refer to the touching letter Mary addressed to her from Workington, on the 17th of May — the morning after her arrival, describ- ing the painful circumstances under which she had taken refuge in England, and claiming her promised aid — to con- vict Elizabeth of a flagrant violation of truth. She takes great credit, moreover, for her hospitality and tender care of the safety of the royal fugitive in sending her to Carlisle, and afterwards, continues the memorial, " granted her to move farther within our realm," meaning the forcible transfer of Mary's person to Tutbury Castle. An equally veracious account of the conferences at York and Westminster follows the said assumption of acting as the benefactress of her hap- less cousin, by doing her the signal favour of detaining her as a prisoner, regardless of all entreaties to permit her to return to Scotland, or proceed to France. She says " that Mary was accused by her subjects of being the principal author of the horrible murder of her husband, with a number of infamous crimes,'' cleverly adding, " and what was the cause why she did not cause her Commissioners to answer the matters produced against her, we do omit for this time." 1 Instructions to Sir Henry ISTorris— Sir Dudley Digges' Complete Am- bassador. MARY STUART. 69 Earnestly as Elizabeth was labouring to produce an impression that Mary was guilty of the crimes imputed to her by the usurpers of her government, she makes no allusion to the alleged documentary evidence on which alone they rested their assertions of that guilt. It is, perhaps, the clenching blow against the silver-casket romance and its contents, the forged contracts, the ama- tory verses, and the letters alleged by the conspirators to have been written by Mary to Bothwell, that they are not mentioned in this subtle attack on Mary. Elizabeth had too much regard for her own reputation for wisdom and sound sense to expose herself to the contempt of the Court of France, by even alluding to fabrications so clumsy and self-disproving, that no person acquainted with palatial life could believe any Sovereign would or could have occasion to write to a minister, with whom she might hold verbal communication at her own pleasure, such vulgar and volu- minous follies ; for if absence rendered correspondence neces- sary, even if they had been on the guilty terms asserted by her foes, all dangerous matter would have been veiled under the mystery of cipher, in which Mary had been accus- tomed to correspond from her tenth year. The morbid appetite for the marvellous, which characterises the vulgar, was appealed to by the forgers of those letters, well knowing that there was no scandal against royalty, however absurd and improbable, that would not be believed and propagated by unreflecting ignorance. But the Princes and Peers of France, who had seen Mary grow up among them from childhood in the conscientious practice of every religious and moral duty, and that refinement which pro- ceeds from a mind unspotted by the world, and had wit- nessed her conduct as both wife and Queen, could not have been persuaded matter so full of sin and folly emanated from her pen. Neither this memorial, nor the libels pre- pared by George Buchanan, which Cecil soon after sent to Walsingham for distribution in the Court of France, in aught diminished the respect with which Mary was regarded in that realm. Ronsard, in his descriptive sketch of the con- 70 MARY STUART. temporary sovereigns of Europe, thus distinguishes her after her return to Scotland, — " I saw the Scottish Queen, so fair and wise^ She seem'd some power descended from the skies Near to her eyes I drew, two radiant spheres, Twin suns of beauty shining without peers. I saw them dimm'd with dewy moisture clear, And trembling on their lids a crystal tear. Remembering France, her sceptre, and the day When her first love pass'd like a dream away." A rally of Queen Mary's party took place as soon as the slaughter of the Eegent Moray transpired. The Duke of Chatelherault, with the Earls of Huntley and Argyll, ad- vanced her banner, and marched to Edinburgh, where Kirkaldy of Grange, the Governor of the Castle, eager to atone for his former treason by loyal service, received them as friends and allies in her cause. Fernyhirst and Buc- cleuch crossed the Border in hostile array, and made a bold aggression on the northern counties, but did not penetrate far enough to form a junction with Leonard Dacre, who had commenced a fresh insurrection at the head of 3000 men. " We hear/' writes La Mothe Fdnelon, " that Dumbarton has been victualled by two French ships, which will greatly strengthen the party of the Queen of Scots, and will give an especial heartache to many at this court of Queen Elizabeth. As to the death of the Earl of Moray, Queen Elizabeth and those of her Council who are Protestant, take it to heart beyond any accident that ever befell to them." There can be little doubt that Mary's restoration to the throne of Scotland would have been triumphantly accom- plished, if her person had not been incarcerated in an English prison. Projects for her escape were not wanting, but unfortunately her affection for Norfolk, her affianced husband, to whom she considered she owed the duty and obedience of a wife, prevented her from availing herself of the good intentions of her secret friends in her behalf. She would not leave him in bonds to provide for her own safety ; at least not without obtaining his permission. Having vainly endeavoured to ascertain what he wished MARr STUART. 71 her to do, if an opportunity for effecting her escape offered, she addressed the following letter to him on the 31st of June : — " Mine own good Lord, I wrote to you before to know your pleasure if I should seek to make any enterprise. If it please you, I care not for my danger ; but I would wish you would seek to do the like ; for if you and I could escape both, we should find friends enough, and for your lands I hope they would not be lost, for being free and honourably bound to- gether, you might make such good offers for the countries and the Queen of England, as they should not refuse. Our fault were not shameful ; you have promised to be mine, and I yours. I believe the Queen of England and country should like of it." How Mary could delude herself with that idea, under ex- isting circumstances, appears passing strange ; but it proves how sanguine her temperament was. " If you think the danger great," continues she, " do as you think best, and let me know what you please that I do, for I will ever be for your sake perpetual prisoner, or put my life in peril for your weal and mine. As you please command me, for I will, for all the world, follow your com- mands, so that you be not in danger for me in so doing. I will either, if I were out, by humble submission, an all my friends were against it, or by other ways, work for your liberty so long as I live. Let me know your mind, and whether you are offended at me, for I fear you are, seeing that I do hear no news from you. I pray God to preserve you, and keep us both from deceitful friends. " This last of January. ^ — Your own faithful to death. Queen of Scots, my Norfolk." 1 Mary's hopes of relief from her English partisans were dissipated by the suppression of Leonard Dacre's in- surrection. He and others of the fugitives who had en- gaged in that desperate enterprise, following the example of the Earl of Westmoreland, fled into Scotland, and thus escaped the terrible vengeance which converted every town and village in the track of the Northern Rebellion into a shambles reeking with the lavishly-shed blood of the vic- tims of martial law. The rigour of Mary's imprisonment was aggravated by the imprudent demonstrations of the Roman Catholic nobles and their dependants. She wrote to Lesley, Bishop of Ross, on the 1 3th of February, express- ing her great concern for his imprisonment, and entreating him "to continue his instances to the King of France, to send ' Decipherment, Harleian MSS., British Museum. 72 MAEY STUART. f troops to the aid of her loyal friends in Scotland, but fears the promised succours from Flanders would come too late, as the Queen of England is raising 12,000 men to send into Scotland to support the rebels, with the purpose," con- tinues the royal writer, " as I am told, to get my son into her hands either by fraud or force, and after that to take away my life ; but if God be favourable to me, of which I cannot doubt, I shall not fear her." i Norfolk's reasonable apprehensions of their letters being intercepted, caused a temporary cessation in the corre- spondence between him and Mary. At length she renewed it by writing to him on the 19th of March in this endearing strain : — " Mine own good Lord, I have forborne this long time to write you in respect of the dangers of writing which you seemed to fear, but I must remember you of your own, at times, as occasion serveth, and let you know the continuance of my truth to you, which I see by your last much suspected. But if you mind not to shrink at the matter, I will die and live with you. Your fortune shall be mine ; therefore let me know in all things your mind. The Bishop of Boss writes to me that I should make the offers to the Queen of England, now in my letter which I write generally, because I would enter into nothing till I know your pleasure, which I shall now follow. I have heard that God hath taken your dear friend Pem- broke, whereof I am heartily sorry. Albeit, let that nor other matter trouble you to your heart, for else you leave all your friends and me, for whose cause you have done so much already, that I trust you will preserve you to a happier meeting in despite of all such railers I have prayed God to preserve you, and grant us both His grace, and then let them, like blasphemers, feel. So I end with the humble and heartiest recom- mendations to you of your own faithful to death. " This 19th of March." 2 Gerard Lowther, the younger brother of Sir Richard Low- ther, was ardently desirous of delivering Mary out of Tut- bury Castle. He conferred with Lesley, Bishop of Ross, on the subject, and said " it should be done by forty or fifty of his brother's horsemen, and that he would convey her to an abbey belonging to his brother-in-law Goodyere.'' Lesley bade him " make himself first sure that his brother- in-law would take it upon him, and in that case, whether he were indeed able to do as he said."' Gerard, in conse- quence of this caution, came to a more succinct understand- ■ Labanoff. 2 Murdin, p. 99. MAEY STUART. 73 ing with Goodyere, and found that, although he was per- fectly willing to assist in conveying letters, or any easy ser- vice required by the Queen of Scots and her friends, he was not to be relied on in so dangerous an enterprise as assist- ing to convey her away. The Lancashire, Shropshire, and Derbyshire gentlemen, were for the most part in Mary's interest, and ready to rise in her cause, provided foreign troops could be insured to support them. The Lancashire gentlemen on whom she principally relied were. Sir Thomas Stanley and Sir Edward Stanley, the younger sons of the Earl of Derby ; Sir Thomas Gerard, and Lord Dudley. The two Stanleys provided, and long kept, a ship at Liv- erpool for the purpose of transporting her over seas, either to Scotland, France, or Flanders, provided she could be got out of her prison. But whenever she sent to consult Norfolk about it, he invariably represented " the great risk she would incur, and his extreme doubt of her being able to get out of the realm alive," adding, " that if she would be quiet and content where she was for a year or two, he doubted not but God would put it into his sovereign Queen Elizabeth's head to deal with her in such manner as she and her friends should be content." But independently of the timidity of his disposition, his jealous fear lest Mary should be carried abroad by those enterprising members of the Roman Catholic party, and married to Don John of Austria, or one of the French princes, prompted him always to dissuade her from encour- aging any of the projects for her enfranchisement. To one of his own confidants he observed, " that he saw plainly that if the Queen of Scotland were conveyed out of the country, she would be wholly lost to him, and become the prize of some foreign prince." ^ The Bishop of Eoss declared, " that if the Duke of Norfolk would have backed her friends of Lancashire, they would have had her away indeed. There was a French gentleman, called Count de Eohan, with whom he dealt much. This Count promised him to bring two thousand French shot into Scotland, and there, with the Queen of ' Murdin, p. 99. 74 MARY STUART. Scots' friends, to have driven away her enemies, and have come into the North and raised a new rebellion there ; but because there could be no mean found for money, there came nothing of it." 1 After six weeks' durance, the Bishop of Ross was brought before the Council at Hampton Court, and informed that he had been committed in consequence of the denuncia- tion of the late Regent Moray, who had sent word just before his death, " that the Earl of Northumberland, and other Englishmen then in Scotland, had declared he was one great means of stirring up of the northern rebellion, giving them encouragement by messages and letters, with promise of aid of men and money from princes beyond seas ; the friends of his mistress the Queen of Scots, affirming also that she herself had been the chief author to move them to take arms." " All which," he says, " I truly denied, and assured the Council that these untruths and sinister declarations were made of malice, to discredit the Queen my mistress and her ministers, for they would never be able to prove the same to be true ; and I trusted assuredly that neither would the Earl of Northumberland, nor any other, affirm any such matter as was reported upon his name. Albeit the Council affirmed ' it was his confession at his first coming to the Earl of Moray, and written by Sandy Laytey, clerk of his council, as gathered of the Earl's speeches, but the Earl of Northumberland had not set his hand to it,' they said."^ To attest the series of false statements penned in the form of confessions or depositions, by one of his own clerks, with a mark alleged to be that of the dead man in whose name they were published, had been easy enough for Moray to accomplish, as in the case of the friendless and illiterate foreigner, Nicholas Hubert ; but to forge the autograph of an English nobleman of the high rank of the Earl of Nor- thumberland, so well known to the Queen of England and her Council, would have been too dangerous. Northumberland, in his genuine confessions at Berwick, ^ Barker's Deposition — Murdin. ^ Lesley's Negotiations — Anderson, p. 88. MARY STUAET. 75 not only exonerated Mary from having the slightest share in fomenting the rising, but declared " that she repeatedly urged them not to rise." ^ Lord Hunsdon, however, vs^rote to Cecil on the 30th of January, that " he had been given to understand that comfort was brought to the rebels by Willie Douglas, who had brought letters sewed in the buttons of his coat, being great three-square buttons, and assured them of aid from the Duke of Alva. He hath brought money twice with him," continues Hunsdon, " and even now I think hath either brought money, or credit for money. I think he be now with the Scottish Queen." ^ Hunsdon was too much excited, apparently, by the nature of the report he was writing, to inquire into the possibility of Willie Douglas, even if as active as a Will-of-the-wisp, being in two places at the same time. The excommunication of Elizabeth by the Pope that spring naturally increased her jealous animosity against Mary ; yet she was of herself disposed to liberate the Bishop of Boss, on the grounds, as she candidly told her Council, " that no proofs could be found of the mal-practices of which he had been accused;"^ but her Ministers over- ruled her opinion, and detained him in confinement till after they had crushed Mary's loyal subjects in Scotland by three invading armies. All Mary could do in her strongly guarded prison, was to protest against the hostile preparations for this purpose, and to implore the intervention of foreign powers. " I conjure you," she writes to the King of France, " in this time of need, by the honour I have had in being your sister-in-law, and brought up from my infancy with 1 " The said Queen sending us her advice that she thought it better not to stir." Confession of the Earl of Northumberland — Sharp's Memorials of the Northern Rebellion, Appendix, p. 198. " What aid did she promise to the rebellion, and what was the cause that made her to will you to stay the same for a time ?" artfully inquired Lord Hunsdon. " No aid was promised," replied Northumberland, " nor I know not what moved her to advise us to stay, than that which might move all wise men to see into, as the sequel appeared." — Ibid. 206. " Did she not require you to stay for answer, until she might get some aid of money for you 1 " — " She never required us to stay until she might obtain any aid of money, but required us generally not to rise or to make any stir." — Ibid. 212. ^ Memorials of the Northern Rebellion, by Sir C. Sharp, p. 170. ^ Lesley's Negotiations, pp. 88, 89. 76 MARY STUART. you — by the alliance of the late King my father with your aunt [Magdalene of France] — by the services my predeces- sors have performed for yours in times of trouble, even to the peril of life — and by the virtue of the ancient treaties of alliance between us, that you will be pleased to send with all diligence help to my faithful subjects."^ She also wrote to the Queen-mother, entreating her, " for the love of the late King her son, Francis II., to back with her powerful influence her petitions to the King of France for succour." ^ Elizabeth, meantime, while levying her military force, sent her veteran intriguer, Randolph, to Scotland, for the purpose of traversing the active measures taken by the loyal party for the restoration of their Queen. Randolph produced letters from Elizabeth, assuring the rebel lords, " that if they would keep the conditions made between her and the late Regent, she would retain and hold the Queen of Scotland in surer firmance and keeping than she Avas kept before, and also would maintain the King's authority with men of war and money."^ A convention of nobles was held a few days later at Dalkeith, at which Argyll and Boyd proposed, "as the best and only way of com- posing the distractions of the realm, and the quarrels of the nobles, the home-bringing of their Queen again." The convention lasted two days, but was broken up by the appearance of Randolph, introduced by Archibald Dou- glas, whose share in Darnley's murder was notorious — " a man," observes the Diurnal of Occurrents, "who had the whole guidance and government of the Earl of Morton." * Randolph's appearance, thus accompanied, elicited a burst of indignation from the Earl of Argyll and the loyal portion of the nobles present. They vehemently re- proached him for his diplomatic villanies, telling him, in plain words, " that it was not meet, nor for the weal of the country, that such a person as he should be permitted to re- main therein, to make tumult and discord among the nobles, for the pleasure of the Queen of England. But it should ^ Autograph Letter in the Imperial Library, St Petersburg. 2 Ibid. s Diurnal of Occurrents, 159. * Ibid. 151. MARY STUART. 77 not continue in his power to do the same, nor would the nobles of Scotland attend to her fair words and feigned, but reconcile their own debates among themselves, and procure the liberation of their Queen at her hands, if she would grant them that pleasure ; but if she would not, they would seek to obtain it by other means." Possessed of the castles of Edinburgh and Dumbarton, the hearts of the southern Borderers, and the northern counties of Scotland, it is possible the friends of Queen Mary might have made their declaration good, if Elizabeth had not thrown her sword into the rebels' scale, by sending Sussex at the head of 7000 choice troops, to carry fire and sword into the loyal districts of Scotland, and compel the adherents of their captive Queen to submit to the domina- tioti of the traitors, who exercised illegal and despotic autho- rity over their fellow-subjects in the name of her infant son.^ To enter into even a brief detail of the ravages perpetrated by the invading English force in the Merse and Teviotdale, and the ruthless devastations inflicted by the army under Lord Scrope, which simultaneously poured over the western border, would be too melancholy a task ; suflSce it to say, more than 500 villages were laid in ashes, besides the castles of the nobles. Sir William Drury, at the head of a third English army of sixteen hundred men, including the veteran bands of Berwick, brought in the Earl of Lennox, the new Regent, whom it was the good pleasure of the English Sovereign to impose on Scotland, in the place of the rightful Queen, his daughter-in-law. Lennox, thus supported, advanced to Edinburgh, formed a junction with Morton, dispersed the loyal peers who had pro- claimed Queen Mary's authority at Linlithgow, and sacked, burned, and devastated the whole district under the obedience of the house of Hamilton. " It is come to this lady's knowledge," reports Shrews- bury, " that Hume Castle, and sundry other places in Scot- land, should be razed by the Earl of Sussex, whereat she finds herself much grieved, yet thinks it shall appear unto the world she makes small account thereof." * Spottiswood. Tytler. Diurnal of Occurrents. State Paper OflB.c6 MSS. 78 MARY STUART. Mary, who had heretofore used the arblast in her archery, was now learning to handle that celebrated English weapon, the long-bow, as we learn from the next paragraph. " She hath begun this Monday, being the 8th of May, to exercise her long-bow again with her folks, with troubled mind, as I think. She utters to me now ' that she is sorry that the Queen's Majesty uses her subjects so, to spoil their coming under trust,' as she terms it ; ' and therefore she fears she shall receive small comfort at her Majesty's hands, but will hope that other princes will have care of her and her country.' This is all she utters to me." ^ But not all he uttered to her, for he made it, according to his instructions, his business to torture her with the communication of every rumour likely to produce irritation of temper or pain of mind, in order to be able to report to Cecil or Queen Elizabeth the various emotions betrayed by the royal prisoner, whose sensitive temperament was only too easily excited on such occasions. Mary relates " that Shrewsbury came to her very merrily one night, and told her exultingly that the Earl of Nor- thumberland had been surrendered to the Earl of Sussex ; which report distressed her so greatly, that she wept till her eyes were swollen for three days afterwards." ^ These burning tears, whose blistering traces lingered thus long on Mary Stuart's lids, flowed from mingled sources — grief for the calamity of the unfortunate English Earl, and indignant shame for the tarnished honour of Scotland ; but they were prematurely shed. The disgraceful barter of the noble fugitive for English gold, was not completed till the following year, by Morton, who contrived to appropri- ate the blood-money to his own behoof, except the portion necessary to satisfy Sir William Douglas, the laird of Loch- leven, in whose custody Northumberland had been placed by the late Eegent Moray. Shrewsbury, never omitting an opportunity of pressing for an advance of his allowance, wrote to Cecil : " I must now require money, at the Queen's Majesty ""s hand, for ' Lodge, vol. i. pp. 510, 511. * Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 17tli May — Harleian Collections. MAEY STUART. 79 this Queen's diet ; and that I may have some at present, for otherwise I shall want needful provisions, which are to be made beforehand. There will be near .5^500 due to me before Whitsunday, and therefore I desire you, because I would be loth to trouble you again before Michaelmas for any more money, that I might have ^1000 with this that is due already, and I shall make shift for the rest till then.'' ^ The foreign ambassadors resident in London, alarmed for the privileges of their inviolate order, united in addressing such strong and persevering remonstrances to Elizabeth on the arrest and detention of the Bishop of Eoss, that as the plague had broken out in England, and intruded within the precincts of the Tower of London, she thought proper to liberate him. La Mothe Fenelon, the French Ambassa- dor, took the liberty of representing to her, in his Sov- ereign's name, the wrong of which she had been guilty in her barbarous aggressions on Queen Mary's friends in Scot- land. She disclaimed having given any such instructions, and wrote to Sussex lamenting he had gone so far.^ Mary, on the 24th of May, returns thanks to Queen Elizabeth for the release of the Bishop of Ross, and re- quests that he might be allowed to repair to her to give her necessary information of the state of her affairs, — " And that it may please you," continues she, " in return for my having twice or thrice prevented, at your request, my faithful subjects from the molestation of my rebels, to recall your subjects from the invasion of mine, or the maintenance of my rebels, for we can enter into no treaty here till that be done. I fear much that to these my just demands the coming of him who calls himself the Abbot of Dunfermline will be an impediment ; but I entreat you to weigh the importance due to a traitor coming on the part of a small number of perjured rebels, whose last requests were so unjust and degrading to you, nor give credit and favour to him against your own kinswoman, willing to offer to you such reasonable terms as may be insured to you without dishonour to myself. Alas ! content yourself, Madam, with the devastation of my frontiers, and the fortresses taken from my subjects, and myself detained in prison, who came voluntarily into your power, without employing your arms to support my rebels against your own blood.'" Though the arrest of Norfolk, the fall of Westmoreland and Northumberland, the death of Pembroke, and the ^ Lodge, vol. i. ^ Despatches of La Mothe Pension. * Labanoif, vol. iii. pp. 82, 83. 80 MAEY STUART. treachery of Leicester, had materially diminished Mary's influence with the English Privy Council, she had still a party sufficiently strong to carry the measures she sug- gested. The English army was for the present recalled, the Bishop of Ross was again admitted to the presence of Queen Elizabeth to plead her cause, in which he appeared to have better success than before his arrest, for in reply to the petition of the majority of the Scottish nobles for the restoration of their Sovereign, a conciliatory answer was returned, and Randolph was instructed to declare " that the Queen his mistress had condescended to the request of Queen Mary's ambassador, the Bishop of Ross, and was about to open a negotiation for a general reconciliation." ^ The Earl of Huntingdon was now discharged from his office of jailer-extraordinary at Tutbury, and the Earl of Shrewsbury once more Intrusted with the sole charge of Mary, under the matrimonial espionage and control of his Countess. The last week In May they removed her to Chatsworth, the strong and stately dower-castle which the Countess had acquired at the death of her favourite hus- band. Sir William Cavendish. Much as Mary disliked Tutbury, It appears from one of her letters to Norfolk that she did not contemplate her change of abode without uneasiness. " I have need," she says, " to care for my health, since the Earl of Shrewsbury takes me to Chatswyth, and the pestilence was in Rotherham, and In other places, not farther than Fulgeam's, next land."^ There was another cause in addition to her natural apprehension of coming Into the vicinity of the plague, which she thus explains to her imprisoned lover : " But I fear at Chatswyth I will get little means to hear from you, or to write, but I shall do diligence." She calls him in the commencement of this letter " her own good constant lord," and rejoices in the receipt of his comfortable letters; " which," says she, " are to me as welcome as ever thing was, for the hope I see you are in ' Lesley's Negotiations — Tytler's Hist. Scot. Queen Elizabeth to the Lords of Scotland — State Paper Office MS. * Harleian MSS., 290, p. 87. Decipherment of the times. MARY STUART. 81 to have some better fortune." She speaks of her distress at the case of her friends in Scotland, and the fears she had entertained of her son being delivered up to Queen Eliza- beth. In conclusion, she says : " Come what will, I shall never change from you, but during life be true and obe- dient as I have professed, and as I pray you think and hold me in your grace as your own, who daily shall pray to God to send you happy and hasty deliverance out of all troubles, not doubting but you would not then enjoy alone all your felicities, not remembering your own faith- ful to death, who shall not have any advancement or rest without you, and so I leave to trouble you, but commend you to God." Though Mary's condition, as far as regarded her personal treatment, was somewhat ameliorated at this time, her life hung on a precarious tenure. The trials and executions of some of those who had taken a prominent part in the Northern Rebellion were still going on, and no pains were spared to induce them to declare that she had incited that insurrection. " Last Friday," reports La Mothe Fendlon, " three gentlemen of good family in the North, called the Nortons, condemned to death for the late rising, were drawn from the Tower to the scaffold to undergo their sentence, when Secretary Cecil followed them hastily, sus- pended the execution, and spoke to them, hoping to gain some testimony in their last deposition against the Queen of Scotland and the Duke of Norfolk. They would say nothing, and on the morrow all were executed." ^ Many a heart has swelled, many an eye has wept, when the true poetry of the North, in its simple ballad metre, has bewailed the fate of Eichard Norton and his eight brave sons ; but few know the strong trial of faith and truth some of those gallant gentlemen had to encounter before the bitterness of death was passed. They were led to die — to die the dreadful death which hundreds of Elizabeth's sub- jects had suffered that year. The tempter hastened after their sledge, showed them the gibbet, the knives, the fire, ' Despatclies of La Motlie Fenelon, June 1, 1570. VOL. VII. F 82 MAEY STUAET. the block, and questioned them for evidence against the Queen of Scots. Many persons would have invented evi- dence against her, for the mere purpose of escaping those horrors, but they would say nothing. They were re- manded back to the Tower, but they remained firm. They were brought to the scaffold the next day, and died in their integrity. Such was the mode of collecting evidence against Mary Queen of Scots. Though all were not heroes like the Nortons, it is astonishing that such a system of art and cruelty failed to extort testimony against her. Among the few memorials of Mary Stuart's compul- sory abode at Chatsworth, is the square, elevated enclo- sure, scarce half a furlong from the house, called Queen Mary's Bower, where, according to local tradition, she was accustomed to resort for air when debarred from walking or riding in the park and chase. Nothing can be more lugubrious than the spot, which is moated and surrounded with a stone wall breast-high, opened in places with balustrades. It is approached by a flight of stone steps, forming a bridge over the deep dark waters that encircle the mound in slow and dismal course, emblematic of the melancholy stagnation of heart and spirit in which the bright, the beautiful, the energetic young Sovereign was doomed to waste the eighteen years of her life she spent in England. Two dingy yew-trees, old but of stunted growth, face the entrance, and a sycamore, with three stems, of later date, partly overshadows it. Mary is said to have amused herself by planting and cultivating a flower-garden within this enclosure — a tradition in accordance with her well-known taste for horticulture ; but, if so, all traces of her Eve-like occupation have departed, for the enclosure is thickly carpeted with turf, and the only flower to be seen within its desolate bounds, when I made my historical pil- grimage to Chatsworth in August 1847, was a lonely Scotch harebell. In the annotations of the ancient Derbyshire ballad, " The Seven Foresters of Chatsworth," this spot is described as " the flower-garden of the beautiful and unfor- tunate Queen of Scotland." The lines that commemorate her residence there, in connection with the ancient oaks of MAEY STUAET. 83 Chatsworth, celebrated in the preceding verses of that exquisite poem, are too characteristic to be omitted, — " Green," sang a forester, " wei-e they that hour When Scotland's loveliest woman And saddest queen, in the dim twilight, Beneath their boughs was roamin'. And ever the Derwent lilies her tears In their silver urns were catching, As she looked to the cold and faithless North, Till her eyes waxed dim with watching." Chatsworth, when Mary Stuart was reluctantly brought there, was a newly -built castle, possessing none of the enchantments which a century and a half later beguiled the sorrows of another heartbroken prisoner, the unfortunate Marshal Tallard, and prompted him to pay that graceful compliment to his generous and kindly host, the second Duke of Devonshire: " When I reckon up the days of my captivity, I shall abstract those I passed at Chatsworth from the account." The Chatsworth of Bess of Hardwick, and its appointments, resembled not those of her munificent de- scendants the Dukes of Devonshire. The natural features of the landscape, the bold Derby hills that embosom the happy valley, are the same ; but Mary Stuart's tearful eyes looked upon them in their wild and barren grandeur, not as they appear now. The magic of art, directed by the classic taste of their noble possessor, has thrown festive and rejoicing beauty over the scene, and invested woods, waters, pleasaunce, and mansion, with attractions, which render it not only the " gem of the Peak/' but of England, and one of the wonders of the world. No one was better qualified to appreciate Chatsworth, as it now is, than the accomplished and learned Mary Stuart, whose natural love for the beauti- ful always inclined her to surround herself with objects of vertu and science, possessing, as she did, a mind too polished, tastes too refined, for the age in which she lived. If, in- stead of the slavish avaricious Earl of Shrewsbury, her castellan had resembled the princely representative of his Countess, her feelings in regard to her abode at Chatsworth might have been like those of Tallard. 84 MARY STUART. The arrival of Mary at Chatsworth was the signal for a j romantic association between the gentlemen of Derbyshire and her Lancashire partisans. Thomas and Edward Stanley, the younger sons of the Earl of Derby, Sir Thomas Gerard, Mr Rolleston, and Mr Hall, were the leading members of the confederacy. They entered into a ciphered correspon- dence with the captive Queen, through a priest of diminutive stature in the family of Rolleston.^ By him Mary wrote to the Bishop of Ross, desiring " that the Duke of Norfolk, without whose approbation she would do nothing, should be consulted." Norfolk replied verbally by his secretary, Barker, " that Sir Thomas Stanley was indeed a most meet man for the purpose ; but seeing she was now engaged in a treaty with Queen Elizabeth, he thought it better for her not to meddle therewith, but to entertain her friends." After this. Hall, who was the acting manager of the confederacy, came to the Bishop, and told him " that if the Queen of Scots could get two thousand men to land out of Flanders or Brittany, the whole country would rise and take part with thera."^ The Bishop replied, " that there was no hope at present of the Queen his mistress getting aid either out of France or Flanders." Among other enthusiasts who desired to achieve the chivalric exploit of breaking the chains of the fair Scottish Queen, was an Italian gentleman who came over to England in the suite of the Marquis Yitelli, and remained in the vain hope of effecting that design. He had a ship at Har- wich in readiness to receive her, and had provided Hunga- rian horses for her escape, of such extraordinary strength and swiftness, that they could run forty miles without once stopping for a bait.^ But the times were too full of suspicion to afford any facility for so visionary an enterprise. The idea of embarking Mary at Harwich for the coast of Flanders, appears to have had some connection with the insurrection of the Norfolk men at Harleston fair, on account of the incarceration of their Duke. Some blood was shed, and four of the county gentlemen, the ringleaders of the ^ Murdin. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. MARY STUART. \ 86 tumult, were tried, found guilty of various treasonable de- signs, and hanged. ^ Either to appease the angry irritation of the easterii counties, on account of the imprisonment of their Duke, who was undoubtedly at that time the most popular nobleman in England, or because the plague increased in the purlieus of the Tower, Elizabeth was graciously pleased to remove him from that fortress to his own house in Norfolk, there to remain a state prisoner during her pleasure, under the charge of Sir Henry Neville, who had been his keeper in the Tower. Norfolk purchased this concession, by signing a bond solemnly engaging neither to prosecute his marriage with the Queen of Scots, nor to concern himself in her affairs for the time to come, without the knowledge and consent of his own Sovereign. ^ This pledge he violated as soon as he had an opportunity of renewing his correspond- ence with Mary. His servant Banister testified " that Norfolk was earnestly bent on wedding the Scottish Queen, not from motives of ambition, but from affection ; and " very sorry I am," said he, " that it was his lordship's hap to fix his mind on no other person, for I partly know by former experiences, that when he is entered into mat- ters of love, he will hardly be removed from the same."^ The following curious facts were also deposed by Banis- ter : " During the time of my then being in London, his Grace delivered to me to keep seven handkerchiefs, a pair of writing-tables, and a little tablet of gold, wherein was set the Queen of Scots' picture, all which I redelivered to his Grace at my going home. At the same time my servant Grim- 1 Applegard, one of the insurgents, made this naive appeal to the judge against the credibility of Bacon, the witness whose evidence procured his conviction of practices with the Duke of Alva : " 0, my lord, will you condemn me on his oath, who is registered for a knave in the Book of Martyrs ? " Chiplain, another of the offenders, being accused of having said he hoped to see the Duke of Norfolk king before Michaelmas, explained, " that he meant not King of England, but of Scotland." " Why, what mad fellows were ye, being rank Papists," said two of Elizabeth's law-officers to the prisoners, " to make the Duke of N'orfolk your pati'on, that is as good a Protestant as any in England, and being wicked traitors, to hope of his help to your wicked intents and purposes, that is as true and faithful a subject as any in this landl " — Lodge. Lesley's Negotiations; Camdenj Jebb; Murdin. ^ Murdin, 138. 86 MARY STUART. shaw paid to a servant of the Bishop of Ross £200, which his Grace lent the Queen of Scots." During his imprisonment in the Tower, Norfolk em-- ployed this person to purchase two rings set with diamonds, which he sent for love-tokens to Queen Marj, one at mid- summer, and one at the preceding Christmas, while she was at Coventry.^ Matters appeared more auspicious for Mary in the month of July. Some beautiful specimens of her needlework, which she had occupied her weary prison leisure in executing as offerings for Elizabeth, had been graciously accepted with expressions of satisfaction. At the same time she wrote and sent that pathetic letter to her mother-in-law, the Countess of Lennox, quoted in the biography of that lady,^ and which we find, by the endorsement of the copy in the State Paper Office, was delivered to her in Elizabeth's presence. In consequence of the pressing instances of La Mothe F^nelon, whose deep respect and genuine sympathy for Mary were always prompting him to use his influence in her behalf, the King of France sent M. de Poigny as an especial envoy to England, with instructions to plead for her liberation, and to urge Elizabeth to negotiate a treaty of reconciliation between her and the rebel Scotch lords, to which he offered to become joint arbitrator. Poigny was also charged to solicit access to the presence of the captive Queen, to deliver letters and messages of consolation from him- self and all the members of the royal family. After various excuses and a delay of three weeks, Poigny obtained per- mission to proceed to Chatsworth, to visit in her prison and affliction her to whom he had been accustomed to bow the knee in homage as his Queen. It is to be regretted that no record has been preserved of the reception given him by this hapless Princess, under circumstances so different ; but his communications, as he returned very soon to France, were of course made verbally, for in the letters she sent to her royal brothers-in-law by him, she refers to the sufH- ' Murdin. 2 Lives of the Queens of Scotland, &c., ii. 427, 428. 2d edit. MARY STUART. 87 ! ciencj of the present bearer for all particulars regarding herself In her letter to the Due de Nemours, her cousin, she says, " He will give you more sure and better informa- tion than I could by my writing, which I will not finish without thanking you for the favour and courtesy you have shown to a poor afflicted widow, who has the honour to be allied to you." ^ Thus Mary, though Both well was living, did not consider herself his wife, but the widow of Darnley, for whom she had resumed the dule-weeds she had been compelled to cast off, after persisting in wean^g them several days after her forced marriage. One of Mary's faithful French ladies, Madame Vienes, who, with her daughter, had been many years in the household of the late Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine, having re- mained in Scotland, sent her, from time to time, tidings of the Prince her son, and all the intelligence she could collect of the state of the country. In one of the intercepted letters of this lady, we find some curious particulars : she says,— " I have received, by the hands of Monsieur de Livingston, the letter you were pleased to write to me, by which I learn the good health and hope your Majesty has of good success in your affairs, which gives me more joy and inclination to praise God than I can express to your Majesty, beseeching Him fervently to send shortly a good result, according to the prayers of all your faithful friends, the number of whom augments daily, beholding the great mercy God has accorded to you by the good beginning of removing three of your greatest enemies.^ . . . Your good subjects hope in His goodness that He will defend you from the ill-will of the Newly- elected (the Regent Lennox) and his accomplices, who, though they make great bravadoes with their usurped authority, are, I understand, very insecure, few feeling disposed to coalesce with them, for they possess little love and less confidence. And because, Madam, you know you will have information of all their proceedings, their enterprises, and everything else of which you desire to be advertised, I will dismiss this subject, and pro- ceed to satisfy your Majesty that my lord, your son, is in good health, and has such remembrance of your Majesty as, at his age, he could retain." The little Prince had completed his fourth year in the preceding June. The last time he saw his mother he was only ten months old ; he had forgotten her then after ' LabanofF, vol. iii. p. 80. * Two of these were the Regent Moray and his secretary John Wood ; the third, perhaps, some traitor, whose evil deeds were less notorious. 88 MAEY STUAET. only six weeks' absence, was frightened at lier dule-weecls, resisted her caresses, and petulantly rejected the apple she took from her pocket to please and pacify his way- ward mood. It seems, however, that her name at least was familiar to his ear, and that he had been taught, probably, by some faithful friend of hers in the nursery, to understand the relation in which she stood to him, and that she ought to hold the first place in his aifections, for Madame Yienes thus proceeds : — " When liis governess inquires of him which he loves best, her or you, he frankly replies, ' My mother.' ^ This puts her (Lady Mar) in such a rage, that she says, ' she perceives she does but lose her time,' which cannot be, having already had recompences made by your Majesty of so many more great benefits and honours than she merits, seeing her wicked ingratitude is so extreme. Forgive me. Madam, if I take the liberty of expressing to you the anger which moves me to repent that I should ever have been so importunate to your Majesty for persons who have so little value as she and her husband for your service ; and I think that neither they, nor several others who have received the same reward, would do more than they ought if they employed their lives and fortunes in performing the very humble services for you that are done by those who have never had a single benefit from your Majesty, but loss and trouble so great, indeed, as could scarcely be sustained but in the hope that God may be pleased to grant us His grace, and to preserve and restore you shortlyto happiness and prosperity." Madame Vienes replies to Mary's inquiries for her little nephew and godson, Francis Stuart, the orphan of Lord John of Coldlngham, and for her sister. Lady Argyll : — " Monsieur your nephew is at the schools, and in good health. One of his sisters is at Stirling with my lord your son. Lady Mar has turned the other out ; I know not why, nor on what account she has done so. My Lady Argyll remains still in the town of Stirling, very sorrowful, and in great poverty. I am at present at Dunkeld, at the request of the ladies of Atholl and Lethington, where I see every one seems to be devoted to you, especially the lords who are in this neighbourhood. I pray God to give them grace to remain constant to this just cause." ^ ' Inedited MS. Letter in the Cotton. Library, Calig. C. ii. f. 26. Trans- lated from the original French. ^ Ibid. MAEY STUART. CHAPTEE LII. SUMMARY. Mary's cause in the ascendant — Cecil and Walsingham sent to treat with her at Chatsworth — Insolent letter from Queen Elizabeth — Passionate scene between Mary and Cecil — Hard conditions demanded of Mary — She proposes that Bothwell's estates be given to the Prince her son, with the exception of Lady Bothwell's jointure — Mary required to marry George Carey — She will not resign Norfolk — Importunity of French Ambassador for her release — Emblematical toy sent to Mary — Letters from her Scotch friends intercepted — Death of her faithful servant John Beton — Mary's sorrowful letter to his brother — Confederacy of the Derbyshire gentlemen in her favour denounced by young RoUeston — She is removed to Sheffield Castle — ^Her dangerous illness — Bishop of Ross brings two physicians to her aid — The Prince her son taught to call her bad names — Her anguish— She protests against the appointment and continuance of Buchanan as his tutor- — Sends Lady Livingston to Scotland with letters to her friends — Commissioners appointed to treat for her restoration — Duplicity of Elizabeth and Morton — Fall of Dum- barton — Ruinous consequences to Mary — George Douglas visits her — Consults her about his marriage to a French heiress — She endeavours to assist him — Her grateful acknowledgment of his services — Second arrest of her ambassador in London — Mary's sickness — Solicits leave to go to Buxton — It is refused — Advice given for her to be poisoned — State of her party in Scotland — The Regent Lennox slain — Mary raises money to assist her friends- — Untoward result of sending it through Norfolk — Their correspondence discovered— Norfolk sent to the Tower again. lier hopeless of any other arrangement, she flattered herself that, if she could obtain her liberty by the concession of certain points, all else she desired would follow as a matter 90 MARY STUAET. of course. The Earl of Lennox had, it is true, been elected as Eegent by the English faction, but the majority of the nobles refused to obey him, and summoned a Parliament to meet in her name at Linlithgow. The Earl of Huntley and Lord Ogilvy maintained her authority in the north of Scotland; the Earl of Atholl at Dunkeld; the Scotts of Buc- cleuch and Kerrs of Ferny hirst in Teviotdale; the Maxwells in Dumfries and Wigtownshire ; the Hamiltons in Lanark- shire; Argyll in the Highlands and the Isles; while Kirk- aldy of Grange, willing to atone for his past trespasses against her, had released Lord Seton, Lord Herries, and her other loyal friends, from their durance in Edinburgh Castle. He had refused to fire the guns in honour of Len- nox's election, openly protested against his usurpation of the Government ; and the regalia being in his keeping, he resolutely detained the crown and sceptre for the use of the lawful sovereign, Queen Mary.^ Lethington, in a letter to Cecil, expressed astonishment " that the Queen of England should reject the friendship of a powerful party in Scotland, consisting of the best and noblest in the realm, for the sake of a few of inferior degree, whose strength was nothing without her support."^ He bitterly reproached Sussex for the devastations he had perpetrated in Scotland, telling him "that he had in two months done as much mischief as any English army had within a hundred years." He added some bitter observations on the conduct of the King's lords to their Queen and country. Sussex retorted these reproaches by sarcastically inquiring " how he, Lethington, reconciled his doings at York, where he came and accused his Sovereign of murder, with this new zeal in her service ? " reminding him, " that if her Majesty (Queen Elizabeth) would have assented to what he and his whole company devised, desired, and earnestly persuaded, there had been worse done to his Sovereign than either the Queen's Majesty, or any English subject, free from passion, could be induced to think meet." ^ Tytler — Lethington to the Archbishop of Glasgow — Maitland Club Miscellany. ^ Tytler — State Paper Correspondence. MARY STUART. 91 I Cecil, and Sir Walter Mlldmay, brother-in-law to Wal- singham, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were despatched to Chatsworth, to negotiate with Mary personally. They were accompanied by Lesley, Bishop of Ross, who was per- mitted to attend his captive Sovereign. Elizabeth, by way of credential to her Commissioners, wrote a bitterly insult- ing letter to Mary, upbraiding her with ingratitude for all the signal benefits she had conferred upon her, and accusing her " of repaying them by stirring up the late rebellion, and inciting her subjects to sedition, a crime so shocking that no one could hear it without horror." This observation came oddly enough from the confederate, " comforter^" pay- mistress, and protector of the traitors who had driven their lawful Sovereign into her toils; but she followed it up with remarks still more offensive to the royal victim, who was smarting under the intolerable injuries she had heaped upon her. Then, after mentioning that she had sent two of her most trusty councillors to endeavour to arrange an amicable agreement between them, she fiercely adds, — " Do not please yourself with the thought that the outrageous menaces of the King of France, nor those of any other prince, are moving me to listen to your offers, because I should, as the Italians say, laugh in my sleeve if they were so ill advised, or so little aware, of the loftiness of my courage, as to fancy that fear would make me do that to which honour did not lead me. I am not so reduced in strength, nor so devoid of good sub- jects, that I should submit my right of action to any prince in Christendom. Attribute not the coming of these envoys to you to any other cause than my good inclination to learn if your heart and pen have been according — deeds being the best means to assure me of that. And inasmuch as you have written to me, by my Lord Ross, ' that you have things to communi- cate to me, which it behoves me to know, and you to declare,' seeing that I do not consider it convenient that we should meet, according to your desire, if you will please to write them by my secretary, they will be sent to me securely ; or if it should rather seem good to you to communicate them to him, I dare promise for him that no living creature but me will hear of it from him ; and of me you can scarcely doubt that I can keep my counsel in what touches myself ; and if neither the one nor the other con- tent you, I shall have great fear that you have written about it for some other end than the necessity of the cause." l It must have been a scene of almost dramatic interest when Mary Stuart, in her majestic beauty, and the small deformed ^ Collections par M. Teulet, vol. ii. pp. 274, 275. 92 MAEY STUAET. English premier whom she had so often, with feminine im- prudence, denounced as the planner of her ruin and the instigator of her murder, met for the first time, face to face, , in her mock presence-chamber at Chatsworth, where she might have exclaimed with Constance, — " Here I and sorrow sit ; here's sorrow's throne ; Come Kings and bow to it !" The two Ministers, after they had presented their creden- tials, entered at once into reproaches with the captive Queen, on the score of her alleged ingratitude to their royal mistress. Mary burst into a passionate fit of weeping, and, unable to control her feelings, complained bitterly of the treatment she had suffered, and the condition to which she was reduced.' She would not hear Norfolk blamed without defending both his conduct and her own, and inveighed against the treacher- ous arts that had been practised by the Earl of Moray.i " As to the proposed treaty for her restoration to her throne, every- thing/' she said, " depended on the Queen of England, whose power in Scotland was greater than in her own realm." On being informed that, unless she consented to give up Edin- burgh Castle and Dumbarton to an English garrison, she could not be liberated, she indignantly replied, " The Queen of England must then work her will on me, for it never shall be said that I have brought that realm into bondage of which I am the native Sovereign."^ It was not till the 5th of October that she recovered her composure sufficiently to be able to discuss the conditions the English ministers were instructed to demand. These were ten in number, and better suited to her hard fortunes than to the lofty spirit with which she had borne up against her calamities. The most important article was that Mary's son should be brought to England, to remain there as a hostage for his royal mother.^ Mary replied, " that although the Prince her son was the dearest thing she had on earth, yet in consideration of the tender love 1 Camden. 2 State Paper MSS. ^ See Haynes' State Papers, 608, 521. LabanofP, voL iii. Lesley's Ne- gotiations. Tytler. Camden. MAEY STUART. 93 home to him by tlie Queen of England, as the offspring of her nearest kinswoman and kinsman, she would consent to his being brought to England to live in some honourable place there, under the government of two or three lords or gentlemen of Scotland, one of them to be named by herself, and the others according to the advice of the Earl of Lennox, his grandfather, and the Earl of Mar." There is something peculiarly touching in the following request of the bereaved royal mother : " The Queen's Majesty of Scotland desires most instantly that she may see her son, whom she hath not seen this long time, before her departing forth of this realm." ^ Aware that the revenues of the Crown of Scotland would be unable to support the additional burden of a separate establishment for her son in England, Mary suggested " that the lands and immunities of some rich abbey in Scotland, then vacant, might be appropriated, to assist in providing a fund for that purpose." She also, in her maternal care for augmenting his estate, proposed " that the Prince her son, in addition to the lands and seignories that have in former times belonged to any prince of Scotland, shall have all such lands as the Earl of Bothwell possessed, by means of any title, till the 15th of June 1567, so as the lady, his wife, may continue to enjoy such portions as by the laws of the realm are due unto her." ^ Here, then, is substantial evidence, versus political fic- tion, of Mary Stuart's real feelings in regard to Bothwell. Speaking in her royal character, she signifies her desire of annexing the escheat of the fair possessions which, in con- sequence of his overt acts of treason against herself, were forfeited to the Crown, to the appanage of the Prince, her son by his murdered victim Darnley. Yet, with charac- teristic love of justice, she conscientiously recognises the rights of Lady Bothwell to her marriage-settlement, by a distinct reservation of such portions of the said Bothwell's estates as, by the law of Scotland, " were due unto the lady ' Haynes, p. 615. * Articles gathered out of a Communication, had with the Queen of Scots, for her Subjects, Oct. 10, 1570 — Haynes' State Papers, p. 617- 94 MARY STUART. his wife " — thus positively disallowing both his divorce from his Countess and his marriage with herself, and briefly, without compromising either womanly delicacy or queenly dignity by entering into unnecessary and painful explana- tions, treats both as nullities. It was insisted by Elizabeth, that Mary should neither marry nor engage herself in a contract of marriage without her knowledge and express consent, and the consent of the greater portion of her own nobles, " testifying under their hands and seals that the same marriage is convenient and profitable for the realm of Scotland." ^ Now this was pre- cisely what the members of the usurping faction had done in their infamous bond recommending their then confede- rate, Bothwell, to the Queen their Sovereign in marriage. The great object of Cecil's journey to Chatsworth was to endeavour to prevail on Mary to condescend to a marriage with Queen Elizabeth's young kinsman, Carey ,^ the eldest son of Lord Hunsdon, and grandson of Mary Boleyn — a match which, it may be remembered, was suggested two years before, during the conferences at York, by Sir Francis Knollys, as the basis of an amicable treaty for the restora- tion of Mary to her throne,^ a suggestion that brought him into displeasure both with Lord Hunsdon and the Queen. Elizabeth was, however, now desirous of acting upon it in order to avert the danger of a marriage between Mary and either the Duke of Norfolk, Don John of Austria, or a prince of the royal house of France. It was therefore determined that the Queen of Scots should be married in England ; and she was offered her liberty on condition of accepting Carey for her consort, and investing him with the title of King of Scotland, of which the little Prince her son was then to be dispossessed, and sent to England for his nurture under the care of the Queen of England. ^ But Mary was either too much attached or too solemnly engaged to Norfolk to accept any other consort. * Haynes' State Papers. ^ George Carey, whom La Mothe F^n^on erroneously calls Heniy Carey. ^ See vol. vi. Lives of the Queens of Scotland. * Prince LabanofF's Appendix, vol. viii. p. 149-151. From the original French document in the Imperial Library, St Petersburg. MAEY ST U ART. 95 Matters, however, progressed so hopefully in regard to the treaty, that Mary wrote to Elizabeth on the 16th of Octo- ber, telling her, " that having sent two such trusty and con- fidential ministers to confer with her, she hoped some good resolution would shortly be taken in her affairs, of which she had previously despaired. " I have,'' continues she, " so fully discussed all the points with them, that I can scarcely fail to satisfy you of my affection towards you, and that no impediment exists on my part to prevent our sincere and perfect amity, which I desire beyond that of any other Sovereign, in proof whereof I consent to put into your hands the dearest jewel that God has given me in the world, and my sole comfort, which is my only and beloved son." ^ She then renews her request of being admitted to Elizabeth's presence, observing, " that she should esteem any agreement between them imperfect without that evidence of good faith." She offers to come in any way that may be con- sidered most convenient to appoint, whether accompanied by many or by few, publicly or so privately that she may be seen only by Elizabeth herself." Her request was unavailing, for Elizabeth was no whit more kindly dis- posed towards her than she had been on her first arrival in her realm, when she manifested her determination of con- stituting the royal fugitive a prisoner, instead of treating her as a relation and a guest. Nor could she disguise her hostile feelings when the French Ambassador at this time proposed a fresh request in his Sovereign's name, that she would be pleased to liberate the Queen of Scots, and desist from crushing the faithful subjects of that unfortunate Princess, and maintaining the rebel faction. " The King of France," he said, " could not, for the honour of his crown and family, forsake his sister-in-law, and was willing to become her guarantee for the performance of the treaty then negotiating, for her enfranchisement and restoration to her throne." Elizabeth angrily replied, " that she was astonished that the King of France could take the cause of the Queen of Scots so much to heart, without considering the great offences she had committed against her ; first by ' Labanoff, vol. iii. pp. 106, 107. 96 MARY STUART. impugning her legitimacj, then by claiming a right to her realm, and finally by stirring up her own subjects against her. It would have been quite enough," she added, "for, the King of France to have admonished her once on her proceedings, according as his honour and duty might in- cline him, but without repeating his instances so often." "Which," observes his Excellency, "I had not failed in every one of my audiences to renew." Ehzabeth told him " that a packet from a Scotch lady had two days ago fallen into her hands, in which she had found an ensign of gold, whereon was engraved a lion, the arms of Scotland, supported by two unicorns and a leopard, with the arms of England, of which the lion made spoil ; while a motto in English declared, ' Thus will the lion of Scotland overcome the English leopard/ This device was sent from a lady who signed her- self Fleming, with a letter requesting Lord Livingston to present it to the Queen of Scots, her good mistress, who would perfectly understand its meaning."^ The emblematical toy which had caused Elizabeth so much oiFence, had unfortunately been confided by Lady Fleming to the care of an English spy of the name of Moon, in the household of the Regent Lennox, who, pre- tending to be greatly attached to the exiled Queen, had, when commissioned by Lennox to proceed to England with letters to Lady Lennox, been Intrusted with no fewer than seventy-four letters and tokens to Queen Mary from persons of the highest rank. Lennox, to save appearances for him, had caused him to be arrested at Musselburgh, where his letters and other missives being seized, served to bring many people into trouble ; among others. Lady Seton and her son Eobert were tried in the Tolbooth " for the treasonable offence of sending letters to the Queen and Mary Seton, and calling therein the maintainers of the young King's authority usurpers, and other blasphemous words but as the Scotch jury did not think proper to convict them, they were liber- ated on finding sureties for not repeating the offence. In the midst of the anxious negotiations which tantalised ^ Despatches of La Mothe Fenelon. * Diurnal of Occurrents. MAEY STUART. 97 lier in the month of October, Mary had the grief of losing her faithful servant John Beton, Laird of Creich;, the master of her household, one of the most active and useful of the true-hearted Scottish cavaliers who had forsaken country, lands, and living, to share her adversity, and wait upon her without wages in her English prisons. He had assisted in achieving the chivalric exploit of liberating her from Loch- leven Castle, and carried the news of her escape to the courts of London and Paris, being the bearer of her letter enclosing the token-ring to EHzabeth, and claiming the promised aid whereof it was the delusive pledge. He had been associated with Lord Livingston in the important mission to the Scottish nobles in connection with the pre- sent treaty, and had just returned to bring her tidings of the state of her cause, and the result of the deliberations of her loyal adherents there. He exerted himself probably too much for his strength, in order to perform the rough perilous journey with the speed required, for he arrived at Chatsworth only to die. He had the honour of being waited upon in his last illness by no meaner nurse than the beautiful and beloved Queen for whose service he had given his life. As the Bishop of Ross was then at Chats- worth, he enjoyed the consolation of receiving those rites which persons of his faith deemed essential for the weal of a departing spirit. He was interred in Edenser Church ; therefore our own beautiful burial-service must, also, have been read over him. Willie Douglas, John Gordon of Gal- loway, and others of Mary's devoted Protestant servants, were among the mourners who, with sad hearts and tearful eyes, assisted in laying the earthly relics of their distin- guished comrade in his English grave. His monument, which still remains in excellent pre- servation in Edenser Church, is an upright slab of black marble, fastened to the wall on the left side of the chancel, scarcely three feet from the ground ; with a curious sepul- chral brass, engraved like an ornamental picture-frame, with a scroll pattern, forming a draperied arch at the top over his escutcheon. This is supported on either side by a VOL. VII. a 98 MARY STUART. recording angel writing in a book. At the foot is his recumbent effigies in the armour of the period. A Latin inscription commemorates his name, his lineage, and his faithful service " to that noble and virtuous princess Marie, Queen of Scotland and France, especially the honourable fact that he assisted in delivering her from the dolorous captivity in which she was kept by cruel tyrants in the Castle of Laga Levenis [Lochleven], and afterwards was employed by her in several important missions to the most Catholic and most Christian Kings, the Queen of England," and others, which he performed with credit, receiving praise from his royal mistress for his fidelity and zeal, and died, worn out in her service, in the flower of his days, in the year of gracel570, aged thirty-two years and seven months." His best and noblest obituary record is from the pen of Mary herself, who, though she wept so sorely for his death as to bring on severe inflammation in her eyes, wrote a letter of consolation to his eldest brother, the Archbishop of Glasgow,' by her secretary Roullet, whom she sent to break the afflict- ing news to him. " God," she says, " has visited you and me with one blow, by taking your brother, the only minister I had left to assist me of all my good servants and friends in this my long affliction and banishment. That it behoves us to praise God * for all his dispensations, you could admonish me better than I you; and so much the more are we bound to praise Him, that your brother died a good Christian, a man beloved of all, regretted both by friends and foes, and above all by me, who having, according to the duty of a good mistress and friend, done all I could think of for him, have served ^ and assisted as a witness of his good end, solemnising his departure from this life with my tears, and accompanying his soul with my prayers. Now he is happy, where we ought all to strive to go; and I remain, deprived in the midst of my troubles of a faithful and tried servant, and in affliction for his loss, and the distress it will cause me, and I fear to you also ; insomuch that I should be broken down ^ with the complication of my misfortunes, did I not know you to be a wise and God-fearing man, and so attached to MAEY STUART. 99 mj service that you will resolve to conform yourself to the vs^ill of God, and take care of yourself, for my sake, to supply to me the place of your brother, as well as your own. I have determined to put your other brother Andrew Beton into the office he held about me, ratifying to him the gift made to the deceased, conformable to his last will, which he called on me to witness ; wherefore I pray you to send him [Andrew Beton] properly instructed as to what I require, and what you desire he should do for you and yours. I assure you I shall employ him as willingly as any servant I have, and more so. He [John Beton] had two of his kinsmen in his service here. One of these, Anton Beton, whom now I will take the more willingly for love of him who was with me before. The other, Thomas Archibald, I have taken to serve me, and have the like intention of doing as much as I can for him, to show how much I loved and esteemed your late brother." ^ Mary adverts to some uneasiness the Archbishop had suffered in consequence of incendiary attempts to cast impu- tations on his integrity, assuring him she had never paid any attention to those who tried to make her believe him otherwise than he was. " I will make," continues she, " such demonstrations as you may consider necessary to your hon- our, and the manifestation of the great confidence I place in you ; and to preve that you doubt not the assurance that I give you of my favour, strive to take care of yourself, for my service, as it may please God that I return to my own country, where I hope you will repair, to be near me as one of the pillars on which I shall found my government. If this treaty proceeds, 1 shall be very glad to see you here." The royal captive sorrowfully adds : " Excuse me to all those to whom I am not able to write with my own hand; for since the death of Beton I have had a bad eye, which is much Inflamed, and I believe writing to you has not much amended it, of which you will have had proof from the first page. Now to conclude. I pray God to comfort you, and assure you of my favour and acknowledgment of ^ Marie Stuart to the Archbishop of Glasgow, from Chatsworth, Oct. 1570— Labanoff, vol. ill. p. 144-146. flewton College oi tne Sacred Hef^n Library 100 MARY STUART. your good service. Send me your brother, for I Lave no one here to put in authority over my household, or any one belonging to you. I assure you that you have a good friend in Eoullet, as well as in Seton, who will be well satisfied to serve you in your absence, from the affection she bears to all those whom she knows to have been faith- ful servants to me, and from the honourable obligation she ought to feel towards her good friends, of which number she esteemed the departed, whose soul is with God. May He give you consolation, and me an end of my troubles, or patience, according to His good pleasure, to whom be praise in weal and woe ! ^ Cecil and Mildmay remained nearly three weeks at Chats- worth, conferring almost daily with the royal prisoner ; yet nothing was settled, the negotiations being postponed till the arrival of Commissioners from Scotland on her side, and that of the rebel lords. How little intention there was of restoring Mary to liberty and empire, may be seen from the following para- graph in a letter written by Cecil to Shrewsbury on his return to Court : — " Now, for removing of this Queen, her Majesty said at the first that she trusted so to make an end in short time, that your lordship should be shortly acquitted of her ; nevertheless, when I told her Majesty that you could not long endure your household thei'e, for lack of fuel and other things, and that I thought Tutbury not so fit a place as was supposed, but that Sheffield was the meetest, her Majesty said she would think of it, and within few days give me knowledge. Only I see her loth to have that Queen to be often removed, supposing that thereby she cometh to new acquaintance ; but to that I said your lordship would i-emove her without calling any to you but your own. We have, as in duty we are bound, made report to her Majesty of your lordship's careful, discreet, and charge- able service in the charge of that Queen for her surety, and the Queen's Majesty's honour. "We have also fully satisfied her Majesty of the painful and trusty behaviour of my lady your wife, in giving good regard to the surety of the said Queen, wherein her Majesty surely seemed to us to be very glad, and used many good words, both of your lordship's fidelity and of the love that she thought my lady did bear to her." ^ The rigorous nature of the confinement in which poor Mary had been kept from air and exercise for the last four- • Labanoflf, vol. iii. p. 144-146. * Dated Windsor, Oct. 26 — Lodge's Illustrations, vol. 1. p. 517. MAEY STUAET. 101 teen months, is sufficiently proved by Cecil's notification of the gracious indulgences which, in consequence of the re- presentations of the Bishop of Eoss, he tells Shrewsbury he had induced his royal mistress to grant to the desolate and oppressed captive. " The Queen's Majesty is pleased that your lordship shall, when you see times meet, suffer that Queen to take the air about your house on horse- back, so your lordship be in company, and therein I am sure your lordship will have good respect to j'our own company to be sure and trusty, and not to pass from your house above one or two miles, except it be on the moors, for I never fear any other practice of strangers as long as there is no cor- ruption amongst your own." 1 The confederacy among the Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Shropshire gentlemen, for the liberation of the fair and un- fortunate heiress-presumptive of England from her present captivity at Chatsworth, having been imprudently confided by Mr Eolleston to his son, one of Queen Elizabeth's band of pensioners, was denounced by him. All the parties were arrested and thrown into prison, except Hall, who fled to the Isle of Man,^ where Mary had so strong a party that it had been proposed, if they succeeded in getting her out of Chatsworth Castle, to take her there, and from thence to Scotland, where Grange was eagerly anticipating her arrival. Preparations for carrying this enterprise into execution had been silently progressing all the time Cecil and Mildmay were at Chatsworth, and the Bishop of Ross had taken the measure of the window in the Queen's apart- ment, whence it was intended to let her down with a cord. The feeling of the country she would have had to traverse was so entirely in her favour, in consequence of the lively sympathy she excited among the English gentry, that no impediment to her flight was to be apprehended when once without the walls of Chatsworth ; but the treachery of young Rolleston frustrated all the hopes that had been raised, and placed her in a worse position than before. ' Lodge's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 517. ^ Hall succeeded in getting to Dumbarton, where, through the recom- mendation of the Bishop of Ross, he was received and warmly welcomed by Mary's loyal Scotch nobles ; but, on the surprise of the Castle by the Earl of Lennox in the following spring, was given up to the English gov- ernment, and suffered the penalty of a traitor's death. 102 MAEY STUAKT. The generous impulses of English chlvalrj, in behalf of the oppressed and calumniated Princess, were not, how- ever, quenched by the failure of this project in her behalf. Scarcely had the Bishop of Ross returned to London, when Hugh Owen came to assure him of the perseverance of himself and his confederates for her liberation. Owen brought with him a large map of England to demonstrate to the Bishop that the situation of Chatsworth, which he said was only ten miles from the sea, afforded peculiar facilities for her escape. The idea of regulating the plan of a royal heroine's escape from her prison by a map, was a novel trait in the history of the numerous associations for Mary's liberation ; but Owen's map must have been strangely deficient in its scale of mensuration, for Chats- worth is not less than sixty miles from the coast. Mary was herself versed, as befitted her, in the royal science of geography, and had globes and maps in her apartments, both in Holyrood and her English prisons. Great com- plaints were, we find, made by her keepers, when remov- ing her, " of the expense caused by the transport of her books and other weighty trumpery, on which she placed mighty importance." ^ The resolution of removing Mary from her comparatively pleasant prison at Chatsworth to Sheffield Castle, was taken in consequence of young Eolleston's revelations of the plot for stealing her away ; but the obscure station of those with whom it originated, prevented its full detection. She re- mained at Chatsworth under very strict restraint, till the end of November. " We are advertised by the Laird of Lochinvar," writes she to the Bishop of Boss, on the 24th of that month, " that he has seen sundry letters of the Earl of Morton, written to divers of our rebels, wherein he encour- ages them with this following, ' that they take no thought of anything the Queen of England promises that they think may be to their disadvantage, for he is assured by her in all he does/ and although she seems to wish us restored, she is not minded to do so, but, dissembling, intends to do nothing for our profit."^ In another letter of the same date, she com- ' Murdin. ^Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 122. MARY STUART. 103 plains bitterly of the conduct of her father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, who not only had violated the truce which, in con- sequence of the negotiations for the treaty, had been pro- claimed in Scotland by the persecutor of her faithful sub- jects ; " but also," she says, " presumes to spoil us of certain jewels, yea, of the very best we have resting in some par- ticular hands in keeping, whom he torments by imprison- ment, hosting [threatening], and other unlawful rigours. He has imprisoned John Sempill, because he refused to deliver to him those that he keeps, and we know not what title or reason he [Lennox] has to crave the same." So greedy was this notable Eegent of the personal spoils of his royal daughter-in-law, that he cited John Sempill's wife, the beautiful Mary Livingston, before his Council, and sharply questioned her touching "certain laiigtailed gowns, garnished with fur of martrix, and fur of sables, pertaining to Queen Mary," enumerated and described in the Wardrobe Inventory, but absent without leave, and reported to be in her custody. The noble young matron exerted her feminine ingenuity in order to baffle the inqui- sition ; but my Lord Eegent, apparently as well instructed in the nomenclature and materials of a lady's dress as a man-milliner, was not to be so easily circumvented. He threatened to put her to the horn, and her husband to the torture of the boot, and by the terror of those menaces suc- ceeded in extorting from her an acknowledgment that she was actually in possession of three such gowns as hedemanded, but then she protested stoutly " they had been presented to her by the Queen her good mistress, and that they were of little or no value to any one." Lennox insisted on the gowns being produced ; nor was fair Mistress Sempill permitted to return to her own lodging that night till she had given surety that she would compear in the Council Chamber on the morrow and surrender them. She did so, and obtained her discharge. The scene must have been an amusing one to witness. What use Lennox made of these articles of his royal daughter-in-law's apparel is not recorded, but one of her lately discovered wardrobe inventories testifies the curious fact, that in the days of her regal splendour she 104 MAEY STUART. occasionally bestowed the reversion of her costly robes of passamented velvet, or gold or silver tissue, on her ^ Secretary of State, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, and ^ others of her cabinet ministers — tokens of queenly favour that would, in the nineteenth century, probably create a, droll sensation in Downing Street. The delivery of the jewels detained by the widow of the Regent Moray was stipulated by Queen Mary among the conditions of the amicable treaty which Elizabeth had offered to negotiate between her and the rebel faction. Lady Moray, whom Lennox was proceeding against for the purpose of getting these much-coveted possessions into his own hands, sent a memorandum to Randolph, i specify- ing the terms on which she was willing to resign the share she had appropriated of her captive Sovereign's spoils to their lawful owner, and requesting the Queen of England, if the conference or treaty between her and the Queen of Scotland be brought to an accord, to obtain for her and her children a discharge of all actions, civil or criminal, that may lie against them for their interference with her Grace's [Queen Mary's] patrimony of the crown-jewels, goods, as well as the gearbelonging exclusively to herself, or any other thing done by the late Regent and his wife from the year 1560 ; from which his widow appears to date their most treasonable practices. Lady Moray also stipulates " that her Sovereign lady shall not only desist from prosecutions on account of these offences, but that she shall accept her and her children ' A duplicate copy of this curious document has lately been discovered in the family archives of the descendant of this lady, the present Earl of Moray, by which it appears that Lady Moray relied on the powerful media- tion of Queen Elizabeth, by whom she expected her cause to be supported. One of the articles refers to the pecuniary dealings between Moray and Queen Elizabeth, whereby it seems that the shrewd-witted widow was afraid of being considered answerable for the large sums of English gold he had received, and prudently endeavours to be freed of that responsibility. Then the English Queen is entreated " to write to the present Regent [Lennox], requiring him not to pursue or put the Lady Moray to any further trouble," and that the said lady " be not put at, crassit," — not driven out of her senses, as the term appears to imply, but crushed or ruined by his proceedings against her for any kind of jewels belonging, sometime, to the Queen of Scotland, and received by her from her husband the late Regent. — "Heidis sent to Mr Randulphe for Ladie Countesse of Murray." In the Charter-room of the Earl of Murray at Donibristle. Courteously communicated by the Hon. John Stuart. MARY STUART. 105 into her hearty favour, and be unto them a protectress, so that they may be allowed to enter into peaceable possession of all their lands and rents, and hold the same unques- tioned." ^ Mary instructed Lesley to place before Queen Elizabeth a representation of the extortions practised by Lennox on her property and that of her faithful subjects, " knowing," she sarcastically observes, " the said Earl of Lennox's qualities, and that he dare not for his life take such things in hand against our good sister's pleasure." But these aggressions were trivial vexations in comparison with the intolerable outrage of which she complains in the last place. The Earl of Lennox had thought proper to commence the education of the little Prince his grandson, by causing infamous epithets — or, to use her own expression, "filthy and most dishonest words" — to be applied to her In his hearing, " which," observes the hapless mother, " is so great a mischantness [wickedness] that it should be horrible not only to our said good sister but to all persons what- soever." If Mary had received the pleasant letter addressed to her by Madame Vienes, assuring her of the love her boy was wont to profess for her, she might have consoled herself with the fond delusion that nature's holy instincts were still mysteriously obeyed in his innocent heart, and that some faithful friend instructed him in his duty to his bereaved and exiled mother. But she had no such drop of flattering sweetness to temper the gall of bitterness that had been infused into her cup of sorrow by the cruel father- in-law, v/ho had ungratefully troubled the wedded happi- ness she might, but for his selfish ambition, have enjoyed with his misguided son. Now, as if that were not enough, he was perverting the tender mind of her only child and sole comfort on earth, by teaching him to hold her in con- tempt and horror. The distress of her mind, acting on her sensitive and excitable temperament, produced severe bodily sufferings. She tells the Bishop of Ross, in her letter of the 27th of November, " that besides the accustomed dolour ' Heidis sent to Mr Randulphe for Ladie Countesse of Murray. 106 MARY STUART. in lier side, a rheum troubled her head greatly, with an extreme pain," and descending into her stomach, deprived her wholly of appetite for food. "Yesterday," continues she, . "thinking the air should have done us good, we walked forth a little on horseback, and so long as we were abroad felt ourselves in a very good state, but yet since find our sick- ness nowise slaked. My Lord of Shrewsbury, because he and others has opinion the changing of air shall make us convalesce, is deliberate to transport us the morrow to Sheffield," a distance of about twenty-four miles. The sick and sorrowful captive was removed on the 28th of November from Chatsworth and the sweet valley of the Derwent, over the chain of rugged hills familiarly called " the Backbone of England," to the bleak feudal domain, Sheffield Castle and Manor, inherited by her keeper from his renowned ancestor John Talbot, the first Earl of Shrews- bury. The Castle was seated on the lofty hill, at the i conflux of the rivers Don and Sheaf : from the latter the name of the town is derived, which Camden describes as " famous for its smiths;" its reputation for keen cutlery was still more ancient, for old Chaucer celebrates the Sheffield knife as a weapon of personal defence. The armourers who, enjoying the patronage of the warlike family of Talbot, built their forges at the foot of the Castlehill, were doubtless the originators of those unrivalled manufactures in steel and iron, which, enjoying a world-wide reputation, have raised the town of Sheffield to its present state of wealth and statistical importance. Mary Stuart could not fail to perceive the superiority of the well-tempered penknives and sharp scissors made at Sheffield to those she obtained from France, and possibly her liberal commissions for presents to her Continental friends, and favourable report of the skill of the artificers there, contributed to the progress of the place where she was doomed to spend so many weary years of restraint. Money being very scarce in England at that time, the large income she derived from her dower and personal estates in Finance proved a source of prosperity to those localities where it was expended, and enabled her to do many kind and MARY STUART. 107 j generous acts in the way of charity to the poor, and to reward those who obliged her and her noble followers. Sheffield, where she resided a greater number of years than at any other of her English prisons, experienced, of course, considerable benefit from the circulation of the foreign gold she expended there. She never forgot that she stood the next in the regal succession, and that the contingencies of a day, or even of an hour, might place her on the throne of England, and she always sought to endear herself to a people who stoo^ to her in a relation scarcely less interest- ing than her subjects in Scotland. Mary was not lodged in Sheffield Castle on her first arrival, but in the newly-built family mansion, called the Lodge, and subsequently the Manor-house, nearly two miles distant from the castle and town, situated nearly in the centre of the spacious well-wooded park, with long avenues of oaks and walnut-trees, leading to it from all points of the enclosure. It had two gardens and three spacious yards, an outer and an inner court. Mary Stuart was the first unfortunate Queen, but not the first prisoner of state, who had been brought to Sheffield Manor-house in sickness and sorrow, with a boding heart ; for Cardinal Wolsey had been conducted thither two days after his arrest by the royal order : he remained in deep dejection eighteen days, and died at Leicester on the fourth day after his departure. The sharp air and bleak situation of Mary's new prison was of course very unfavourable for her " rheum.s^" as she termed her neuralgic maladies and inflammatory catarrh ; she became rapidly worse, after her arrival, so that she desired to prepare herself for death. La Mothe Fenelon makes the following report of her to his own Court on the 9th of December : " The Queen of Scotland has fallen very ill, and they moved her to Sheffield, think- ing that she would find herself better with change of air and place ; but her malady has increased so much that she has sent to the Bishop of Ross to come to her with all speed, and bring with him a priest of her church, to admi- nister to her the last rites. The Bishop has departed this 108 MARY STUART. morning to perform for her this holy office himself, for want of another ; and has taken with him two good physicians, whom the Queen of England has sent to her. She has also , written a kind letter to the said lady, which will console her greatly, for she has sent word to us that her greatest ill- ness is the trouble caused by her affairs. We suppose that it is her accustomed pain in the side, and that we shall soon have better news of her.^' ^ The Bishop of Ross induced two of the most eminent physicians in London, Dr Apslow and Dr Good, to accom- pany him to Sheffield, and to their skill her final recovery was attributed ; ^ but her case was for a long time considered desperate ; anguish, which no human prescriptions could alle- viate, was the exciting cause of her sufferings ; and till time and the holy influence of religion had in some measure mitigated her mental travail, she made slow progress towards convalescence. La Mothe Fenelon, who regarded her with the deepest sympathy, thus continues his melancholy report of her state : " I had hoped to be able to send you some good news of the Queen of Scots, but the Bishop of Ross has written to me on the 11th of this month, of the state in which he found her when he arrived, which is very pitiable to hear ; for, besides a complication of many maladies, she is afflicted with extreme vexation about her affairs, and quite broken- hearted, by having been told of some bad words which the Prince of Scotland, her son, has spoken of her. Neverthe- less, by the timely application of the skilful remedies that have been used, the physicians judge that she is at present out of danger/' ^ The agony inflicted by the painful fact to which the ambassador alluded, was not mitigated by the intelligence that her libeller Buchanan had been appointed her son's tutor. She thus writes to La Mothe F^ndlon on the subject : " Master George Buchanan, who troubled himself to write against me to please the late Earl of Moray and my other rebels, and continues to demonstrate, by all pos- ^ Despatches of La Mothe Fdn^lon, iii., 397. Dec. 18. ^ Lesley's Negotiations. ^ Despatches of La Mothe Fenglon, iii. 407. Dec. 18, 1570. MARY STUAET. 109 sible means, his obdurate ill-will, has been placed with my son as his preceptor, which, for these and many other consi- derations, I cannot wish to be permitted, nor that my son should learn anything from his school. I pray you to move the Queen of England that, at her request, which will not be refused, another may be put in his place. The said Buchanan is old, and has more need of repose than to tor- ment himself with a child." l The petition of the bereaved mother was unavailing. Buchanan had purchased his ap- pointment by his active services in her defamation.^ Notwithstanding her sore sickness and dejection, Mary continued to direct the ciphered correspondence she carried on, by means of her secretary Roullet, with Ridolphi and the Duke of Alva, soliciting foreign aid, perceiving that the late conferences with Cecil and Mildmay had not in the slightest degree ameliorated her condition, and that Eliza- beth's friendly professions were only intended to deceive her and her friends. Mary's principal lady-in-waiting, and trusty friend, Lady Livingston, was absent at this anxious time, having pro- ceeded to Scotland with letters to Grange, Lethington, and other members of the loyal party there, which could not have ' Mary to La Motbe Fenelon, March 4, 1570-71— Labanoff. * The depravity of (Buchanan's mind, his gross estimate of the female character, and his contemptuous ideas of matrimony, are shamelessly un- veiled in a ribald letter to Randolph, sarcastically condoling with him on " his folly in entangling himself with a second wife, after being happily delivered from his first," with various observations too odious for repetition. This disgraceful document has been printed by Mr Wright, in his " Queen Elizabeth and her Times," vol. i. p. 427-429, " as characteristic of the terse wit of King James's schoolmaster, and the most famous of Latin poets." Alas, that wit should be thus defiled, and genius and learning degraded to the illustration of sentiments so unbecoming to a hoary-headed man who had been bred an ecclesiastic, assumed the province of an historian, and had undertaken the duty of preceptor to the infant heir of three realms ! The said letter is undoubtedly a proof of the learned writer's ability to in- struct his royal pupil in the vulgar tongue, of which it appears the first use the poor babe had been taught to make, was to apply dishonest epithets to the hapless mother, from whose tender care he had been torn, to experi- ence at first the neglect of an intemperate nurse, and afterwards the per- sonal cruelty and oppression of this model schoolmaster. No one surely who reads that letter will ever regard Buchanan's calumnies of Mary Stuart in any other light than as proofs of his own false and malignant feel- ings against women in general, more especially the woman he was so largely rewarded for defaming. 110 MARY STUART. been safely intrusted to an ordinary courier. A passport from Queen Elizabeth for Lady Livingston, to repair to her lord, who was then Mary's accredited envoy, to move her parti- sans to enter into negotiations for the proposed treaty, enabled the fair and noble bearer to pass unsearched, and finally to deliver missives that might have cost a messenger in doublet and hose his life. " I sent letters to you by my Lady Livingston, which I know ye have received," wrote Mary from her sick chamber, on the 10th of December, to the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Kirkaldy of Grange, and his coadjutor in her service, Lethington. She tells them of the distressing report she had heard, that they had entered into an accommodation with her rebels, which she could not believe, unless it were something for her advantage. " I am in the same state," continues she, " that my Lady Livingston left me in, except that I am con- tinually pressed to talk freely, wherein I have hereunto keeped me within ray bounds, which I intend not to exceed for any- thing I see yet." ^ Mary mentions in the same letter that the Duke of Alva had engaged to furnish Lord Seton with 10,000 crowns, to be applied to the urgent necessity of her friends in Edinburgh Castle. The fluctuations in her health caused great anxiety to all who felt a kindly interest in her fate : some pains were taken to obtain correct informa- tion on the subject by her friend La Mothe Fenelon. " It has been reported," writes he, December the 23d, " that the Queen of Scots is not yet out of danger, but just now one of her servants, who is her fruiterer, and fills the office of apothecary to her, and who served her last Wednesday at dinner, has brought me certain intelligence that she finds herself better. The Queen of England, after sending one of her gentlemen to visit her, has sent her a ring, expressing her desire to renew the marks of friendship between them." Yet in her next interview with that minister, Elizabeth testified much displeasure at the instances made by him in behalf of her unfortunate prisoner, observing " that she took it very ill of the King of France that he always made her second to the Queen of Scots, w^hen she merited to be ' Labanoff, iii. 134. MAEY STUART. Ill the first in his consideration, for he could neither write to her nor communicate with her by his ambassador, without bringing in the Queen of Scots and her affairs. However, she was very sorry she had been ill, and had sent a gentle- man to visit her." ^ Mary replied with more lively expressions of gratitude than the insincere professions of friendship and sympathy contained in Elizabeth's letter merited : " Being sore vexed with infirmity, nothing on earth was so acceptable to me as your hearty comfort and the bearer's credit, ray ambassador, wherein ye did declare your careful and loving mind which ye bear for the recovery of my health, as also for the weal of my son and the good hope given unto me of some speedy resolution to be taken in my long suits, for the which I give you most hearty thanks ; assuring you, that albeit at the pleasure of God, and by the help of your learned physicians, I am partly convalesced, yet nevertheless the principal cure and continuance of my health does consist in that I might stand in your good favour." 2 Mary's nomination of her faithful servants. Lord Living- ston, and Gordon, Bishop of Galloway, to act as her Com- missioners for the negotiation of the treaty, being approved by the majority of the Scotch nobles, they arrived at Sheffield Castle on the 23d of December, and tarried with their royal mistress till the 29th, when they and the Bishop of Ross proceeded in company to London for the perform- ance of their mission. The usurping faction, aware that Elizabeth was in no hurry to proceed with the treaty, did not despatch deputies till the middle of February, when the Earl of Morton, Makgill, and the Abbot of Dunfermline, were accredited for that purpose.^ They were predetermined Mary should never return to resume the reins of empire in Scotland, and Elizabeth, in like measure, had resolved never to send her there, unless as a victim bound and foredoomed for slaughter. Mary's health continued in a weak and fluctuating state during the winter. In one of her letters to the Bishop * D^pechesde La Mothe Fdn^Ion, vol. iii. p. 409. * Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 161. ' Lesley's Negotiations. 112 MARY STUART. of Eoss, she desires him to send by the bearer, one of the Earl of Shrewsbury's messengers, " the medicated wine the perfumer had left for her ; together with the other drugs, more cinnamon-water, and the virginals." ^ In another letter she complains of her bodily weak- ness, of the difficulty she finds in sustaining the physi- cian's charges, and dreads the expenses of her Com- missioners' journey from Scotland and residence in Lon- don. The Bishop sent Cuthbert, one of his confidential secretaries, to communicate the state of affairs, both private and public, to her, and to give her information about her finances ; but she had taken a fresh cold in consequence of the long-continued stormy weather, and was, as she tells him in her letter of the 18th of February, incapable of entering into business. " We have been so vexed," she says, " with a continual distillation of the rheum since Cuthbert's here arriving (of whom we received all your letters), which moved us to be so evil at ease that we might not abide the hearing of any affairs, and specially of your accounts ; and albeit these two days past we have been some part more at quiet, yet we might scantly spare one hour of every day to the audience of the same."' ^ She earnestly desired Beton, Archbishop of Glasgow, to come over from Paris to assist her with his advice in the ar- rangement of the treaty ; but Elizabeth refused to grant the passport that was solicited for that purpose, pretending that he had concerted with Cardinal de Lorraine and the Pope's nuncio, a project for the Duke of Anjou landing in Ireland, and raising an insurrection there in Mary's favour. Mary expresses the most lively astonishment in her letter to the Archbishop at this declaration, and in reference to the matrimonial treaty then on the tapis, sarcastically ob- serves : — " I do not think there can be much love and intelligence between them, or they would not mix up his name with any mischievous intention which ' Labauoff, vol. iii. p. 173. 'Ibid. p. 193. MARY STUART. 113 may be imputed to me." ' " This," continues she, " is of a piece with her pre- vious pretence, that I had ceded my rights to this crown to the Duke of Anjou. Entreat liim to exonerate me before the ambassadors, and request them to write about it. She [Elizabeth] uses the fairest words, but will do nothing — promises that she will arrange a treaty for restoring me to my throne, while underhand she is intriguing for tlie Castle of Edinburgh, and trying to cor- rupt the captain with lier offers, in order to establish the Earl of Sussex in the government of Scotland. She has caused Grange to be asked on what terms he will consent, by a person named Hari-ington, whom she sent to the Earl of Lennox to make this overture as if from himself. Morton expects to return as Regent, and has been promised, as I am told, to have all those who still adhere to me surrendered to him. These are tokens that the intentions of this Queen are far different from her words, and that it will not do for me to rely on her treaty, while she is doing everything in her power to get both the castles [Edinburgh and Dumbarton]. Grange sent his brother to the King of France to assure him of his good faith, having heard that this Queen boasts that he will do more for her than either for me or my son. On his rejection of Harrington's offer, Lennox was assured of having forces from this Queen to take both enterprises in hand. Supplicate the King to take the Castle under his protection, and to furnish Grange witli money, arms, and victuals. He asks but five hundred men to keep that fortress, and hold the city at my devotion. The country, from the frontier to the gates of Stirling, is all for me ; and I am assured tliat he will do something which will atone for all past faults." 2 The repugnance of tbe Duke of Anjou to tlie splendid alliance which seemed to court his acceptance, had become apparent to Walsingham the English ambassador at Paris, to- gether with certain perverse indications of his preference for the fair and unfortunate Mary Stuart, which caused a pause in the negotiations, and had led to the rumour that he, the youthful victor of Jarnac and Moncontour, was disposed to undertake the romantic enterprise in her behalf, alluded to by Elizabeth. Walsingham wrote to Leicester on the 29th of March : ^ " That if the marriage between their Sovereign and Monsieur took not place, then nothing could be more dangerous than restoring the Queen of Scots to liberty — a concession which the King of France persisted in demanding. Then if Monsieur were released from his engagement to the Queen of England, Scotland would eagerly receive ' Labanofif, vol. iii. p. 204. ^ Ibid. * MS. copy of Letters from Elizabeth's Privy Councillors and Ambassa- dors, from 1569 to 1584, in the collection of Dr Callaghan. VOL. VII. H 114 MAEY STUART. him, and France would be ready to support the Queen of Scots' title to the crown of England as his wife."^ Catherine de Medicis, however, made professions to Wal- singham, " that she loved the Queen of England, who was pleased to honour her with the name of mother, as well as she did the Queen of Scots, her actual daughter-in-law. In pleading for that desolate Princess to he set at liberty/' said she, " I speak out of regard for the quiet of the Queen your mistress, and her enjoying that respect which can never grow unto her while she detains the Queen of Scots as a prisoner." ^ While the delusive negotiations for Mary's restoration were proceeding, projects for her enfranchisement were again meditated by her unsuspected English friends of low degree. Lygon, one of the Duke of Norfolk's gentlemen, came to the Bishop of Ross and proposed that an effort for that purpose should be made. Owen, Powell, and Eowe were prepared to assist, only they could not agree as to the disposal of her person. The Bishop of Ross desired Barker to inform the Duke of Norfolk, and hear what he thought of it. Norfolk, as usual, was annoyed instead of pleased at the idea of the enterprise, and pettishly answered, " The Bishop of Eoss will never leave practising ! I cannot tell what to think of it, nor what so slender a company d>> 3 0. Hugh Owen came to Howard House soon after, and told the Duke of Norfolk " that Lord Lumley's man, Eowe, had consulted him about a project for the escape of the Scottish Queen ; and that if she could be got out of the house where she was kept, he could find the means of conveying her through the dales and byways to Lord Lumley's castle of Kelton, in Yorkshire. If this were found too difficult, Powell offered to take her to the house of his sister, or sister-in-law, or to a barn near their dwelling, to rest and change her horse, and so to be conducted from thence to the ' MS. copy of Letters from Elizabeth's Privy Councillors and Ambassa- dors, from 1569 to 1584, in the collection of Dr Callaghan. ' Complete Ambassador. ^ Murdin, pp. 119, 120. MAEY STUART. 115 sea-side, which, he thought, might easily be accomplished/' l He tried to persuade the Duke to avail himself of the same opportunity for effecting his own escape from England ; but Norfolk would not listen to the proposal, being then in hope of regaining the favour of his own Sovereign, and not enough of a knight-errant to risk the loss of his great possessions, and become a landless exile for the sake of his lady-love. Another project for her liberation was devised by Sir Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland's brother, though he would not have his name mentioned in it, which was for Powell to contrive her escape out of the house where she happened to be kept at the time, and that three trusty gentlemen of the names of Holland, Slingsby, and Clavering, who were willing to undertake the enterprise with six associates, should receive and escort her as far as she could travel the first day, then to be relieved by a fresh company of men and horses, and so, by a third convoy, to be brought into Scotland, where a number of her own loyal subjects would be ready to receive her. It was finally agreed that Powell, Owen, and Rowe should severally go down into the country at Easter, and appoint places for the reception of the Queen, where fresh horses should be laid for her ; and that, on the night appointed, a certain number of the confederates should enter the park, and then she and one woman and one man of her household should be let down from the window, set on horseback, and travel from place to place till they came to a castle in the North, where Sir Henry Percy would receive her, and carry her to the Border, Lord Herries being in the mean time apprised by the Bishop of Ross of what was in preparation, in order to be in readiness with other loyal friends to meet her.2 Elizabeth's great object in the negotiations for the treaty she pretended to be arranging between Mary and her rebel lords, was to get the person of the little Prince into her possession. " He is in the hands of ray rebels," said Mary ; " it is useless to require him of me." When Morton ' Depositions of the Duke of Norfolk, October 13, 1571— Murdin, 160, * Ibid. 116 MARY STUAET. was pressed to give him up as a hostage for the royal mother's performance of the conditions of her restoration to her realm, he declared his powers were not ample enough for such an agreement, and that it would be necessary for hira to return to Scotland for the question to be submitted to a parliament which should be summoned to meet for that purpose.l Mary perceived and resisted the snare that was laid for her to recognise the acts of a parlia- ment convened by any other authority than her own ; and she wrote a spirited letter to Elizabeth, objecting to Mor- ton's return for that purpose : " What need of it ? his person carries no authority," she observes; "and I am assured that the others would not dare to refuse to follow his advice if admonished by you, who are their sole protection. . . . For myself," continues she, " I will have no other surety from them than the obedience which they naturally owe and have sworn to me, some of them having re-sworn it in public parliament, as Morton in particular can testify for his part, and it is fresh in memory, inasmuch as I pardoned him for the murder committed in my presence. God has made me a Queen ; I hold my right from Him ; and request assistance from you as my nearest relation and neigh- bour." While the discussion was yet pending, her cause received a fatal blow. The fortress of Dumbarton was surprised dur- ing the truce, and the brave noblemen and gentlemen, who had for nearly four years maintained her authority in that stronghold of loyalty, were captured, with the exception of the Governor, Lord Fleming, who scrambled down the rock and escaped. Archbishop Hamilton was taken clad in coat-of-mail and steel-cap, and arraigned and hanged by Lennox's order as the murderer of Darnley, on the evidence of a priest, who swore that Jolui Hamilton, servant of the Archbishop, had, in confession, acknowledged himself an ac- complice in the crime ; " for that his lord, moved by ancient enmity, and a desire to bring the Crown into his own family, deputed the perpetration of the murder to seven or eight of the most wicked of his vassals, to whom he gave the keys " Tytler, Lingard. MAEY STUAET. 117 of the King's lodging at Kirk-of-Field ; that they entered very silently into his chamber, strangled him, and carried his body through a little gate into an orchard adjoining the walls, and then gave a signal to blow up the house."^ »i Mary's confidential correspondence with Lord Claud Hamilton, and her other friends, informing them of the aid promised by the Duke of Alva,2 fell into the hands of Lennox at the capture of Dumbarton, and, being sent to Cecil, furnished the first clue to the intrigues into which she, despairing of aid from other quarters, had entered with the Spanish Government.^ Other letters of hers were found expressing her indignant sense of the ungenerous treatment she had received in England, which tended to aggravate her disastrous position. The project for her escape from Shef- field, which was to have been attempted at the ensuing Easter, was discovered at the same time, and prevented, when on the very eve of execution, by the Earl of Shrews- bury removing her suddenly from the Lodge in the park to the Castle, in spite of all her remonstrances. The window was long pointed out in the ruins of the old Manor- house, as the Lodge is now called, as that from which the captive Queen intended to make her escape, in the ^ Buchanan's Hist. Scot., vol. ii. p. 417. If this deposition were not the most atrocious of perjuries, suborned by Lennox to procure the condemna- tion and execution of his old adversary, Archbishop Hamilton — and Buch- anan affirms that it was repeated by the same priest fifteen months afterwards when on the way to the gallows to suffer death for having been thrice convicted of saying mass — then were Bothwell's servants, including French Paris, murdered men, and the confessions published in their names forgeries, as well as the melodramatic narrative of Bothwell's proceedings at the firing of the train related previously by that veracious historian in his first libel on his Sovereign, " The Detection ; " for his record of the Archbishop's conviction in the " History of Scotland " overthrows his other statement, with which it is incompatible. * Alva, the most unscrupulous of statesmen, took occasion of Mary's application to him, through Ridolphi, for assistance from the King of Spain for herself and her loyal subjects, to suggest to Philip II. how much the death of Queen Elizabeth would conduce to the quiet settlement of his government in the Low Countries : and to the eternal disgrace of that Sovereign, the question of her assassination was seriously debated in the Spanish Privy Council, and carried in the affirmative ; a ruffian of the name of Grafts being named as the agent who would undertake it. On cooler reflection the nefarious project appears to have been abandoned, for no attempt was made. Neither were any steps taken by Philip for the in- vasion of England during Mary's life. ' Labanofif s Resum§ Chronologique. Lingard's Elizabeth. 118 MAEY STUAET. same manner as proposed at Chatsworth, by means of a cord and pulley.^ Though her faithful servant, John Beton, was mouldering in the dust, Mary would not have lacked the assistance of one as trusty and as courageous, for George Douglas was with her, having just returned from Fi'ance as if for the very purpose. The Easter festival was passed by Mary in great affliction, weeping over the fall of Dumbarton, the ruin of its gallant defenders, and the utter extinction of her hopes of libera- tion, either by treaty or escape from her prison. Her distress would have been much aggravated had she been aware of the trouble in which the Bishop of Eoss, and her other servants and friends in England, were involved, in consequence of the arrest of the Bishop's secretary, Charles Bailly, at Dover, on his return from a mission to Flanders, with the impression of a new edition of that eloquent little volume, the " Defence of Queen Mary's Honour, in reply to the calumnies of her foes and Buchanan's libel, ' The Detection.' " ^ Bailly was also the bearer of letters in cipher from the Duke of Alva, supposed to be intended for Queen Mary, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Spanish Ambassador. 1 Murdin. LabanofF. Lesley's Negotiations. ^ In the English edition of this work, so rigorously suppressed by Cecil, there were sundry compliments to Queen Elizabeth, which, having failed to purchase toleration for the work, had been suppressed in the edition printed at Liege, and superseded by the following appeal to the English reader : " And if thou thyself be either noble by birth, honourable by vocation, or of gentle blood descended, forget not that one of the chief offices and principal duties of nobility and chivalry is, by all lawful and good means, to succour and comfort the oppressed and desolate, and in no case hath the honour and prowess of the English nobility more shined and ghstened in the eyes of the world than in comforting desolate widows and afflicted ladies. And, verily, if the famous Arthur of England were living again— if all be not fabulous that is read and written of him— how abashed would he be of the great change of his people and nation, to see now such an excellent lady hither fled for succoui-, so worthy a Princess expelled by her subjects, so noble a Queen forsaken by her own there, yet to be taken as a prisoner, holden captive as an offender, slandered and defamed as a malefactor, and yet few or none of our realm appearing, that by pen, tongue, or by any other civil and lawful mean, once showeth his face in her aid and defence." These alterations, Bailly rightly judged, would cause offence. " I fear," writes he to the Bishop, " they will mis- like the prefaces most of all. I would that you had one preface of each book that you might see how the doctors of Louvain have changed them." — Bailly to the Bishop of Ross, from the prison, this first Friday after Easter, April 20, 1571. Murdin, v. MARY STUAET. 119 He was carried first to the Marshalsea, and examined bj Lord Burleigh, as Sir William Cecil must henceforth be styled, having been elevated to the peerage by that title at the preceding Shrovetide. Neither threats nor promises could elicit anything from Bailly till he was removed to the Tower, and experienced the torture of the rack, when he suffered such disclosures to be wrung from him as led to the arrest of the Bishop of Ross, who was subjected to a very stern examination before the Privy Council on the 13th of May, and committed to prison.^ Unconscious of all that was going on in London, and the storm that impended over her, Mary wrote on that inauspi- cious day to Elizabeth to request her to grant a passport for George Douglas to go to Scotland. " I should be very glad to oblige him, as his faithful services merit," she says, " but I cannot arrange it without your aid and favour, as I under- stand on that side of Scotland where he has the property I gave him before my imprisonment, by the means of the late Lord Moray, and some other goods which belong to him, I must beg you to order the Earl of Lennox and his adherents to allow him to pass freely, and without constraint, as one of my faithful subjects and servants, under your protection, out of favour to me and respect for the King my good brother, in whose service he is." She wrote the same day to her Ambassador in Paris, the Archbishop of Glasgow, directing him to take measures for facilitating the marriage of George Douglas with a young lady of rank in France, with whom he had fallen in love, and whose mother objected to him on account of his poverty. " George tells me," observes she, " that he cannot conclude the marriage he has so long con- templated with La Verri^re without being assured of the grant I made him." In a very different spirit from the wrathful jealousy exhibited by Elizabeth when any of her ' The very interesting prison correspondence between Bailly and his master will be found in Murdin, and further particulars in Lesley's Nego- tiations. A fac-simile of poor Bailly's touching inscriptions on the wall of hi^ prison has been published by W. Robertson Dick, Esq., in his most valuable illustration of the Tudor reigns of terror, " Inscriptions and devices in the Beauchamp Tower." The first, which is a little defaced, supplies the date on which the luckless prisoner was brought thithez', April 16, 1570. 120 MAEY STUART. courtiers betrayed a desire to enter into the holy pale of wedlock, she then instructs the Archbishop to obviate the objections George's pecuniary destitution had opposed to the accomplishment of his union, by enabling him, at the expense of a considerable sacrifice on her part, to settle five-and-twenty thousand francs on the young lady, if her mother and friends would allow the marriage to proceed on these terms. " Even if to obtain that sum," continues Mary, " you are compelled to settle the lawsuit for which I was formerly offered forty thousand francs at a word. Although I should make a sacrifice to settle it, yet I must give him what I have promised. Endeavour, therefore, to get me out of this debt, which the service he rendered imposes upon me." She concludes the subject by saying : " I recommend to you the management of his matrimonial and other affairs." In a previous letter on the same sub- ject she had said : " I desire you will hasten the affair of Douglas, for I should be sorry to have it laid to my charge that so important a service as that which he has rendered me should be ill rewarded ; such services are not met with every day. As you were much pleased at the result of it, prove yourself his friend in this and in other matters, and be indulgent to the few faults you may find in him." The settlement his generous and grateful Sovereign out of her poverty was willing to enable George Douglas to make on his French love was probably inadequate to the expectations of the mother, for, instead of con- cluding that alliance, he returned to Scotland four years afterwards, and married Lady Barery, the rich widow of one of his old Fifeshire neighbours, whose estates lay near Loclileven. George and Willie Douglas were both Protestants, and remained uncompromising adherents to the faith in which they had been nurtured, a fact not generally known, but surely deeply interesting, as it proves that Mary's influ- ence was not of the seductive nature described by her modern French biographers. The firmness of these chival- ric young men to their religious principles, notwithstand- ing their faithful adherence to the fallen fortunes of their MARY STUART. 121 Roman Catholic Sovereign, enhances the value of the practi- cal testimony borne by their conduct to her innocence, for they had been behind the scenes^ witnesses of her personal conduct, not only as an oppressed captiye, but as a queen and a wife, having seen her and Darnley together in hours of domestic privacy during their occasional visits to Lochleven. George Douglas must also have been cognisant of his brother Moray's previous plot for the assassination of Darnley at the Kirk-of- Beith, and aware of the secret springs of the occult plots whose object had been to elevate his brother to the regency of Scotland. His worldly interests were obviously identified with that brother; but honour, conscience, and manly feeling, prompted him to sacrifice the brilliant prospects of wealth and political greatness to espouse the cause of his injured Queen. Strong was his faith in her integrity, it might have been said, had there been any room for doubt or reasoning on the conflicting nature of the evidence; but there was none in his case, for, as before observed, he had been behind the scenes. He knew Moray, he knew Mor- ton, he knew Lindsay, he knew Ruthven, not as the world knew them, but as one who had been present at their secret councils, and employed at first by them as one of the turn- keys, till the ruffian violence offered to the sacred person of his liege lady, by his brother-in-law Lindsay, elicited reproof from his lips, and inspired him with the noble determination of becoming her deliverer, though the great theocrat of his party, Knox, was clamouring for her blood. Well did George Douglas know the arts by which the excitable temperament of Knox was acted upon, and rendered, though meaning for the best, the blinded instrument of the Regent Moray. No honest man certainly had enjoyed such opportunities of forming a correct estimate of the real facts of the case. Under these circumstances the conduct of George Douglas is calculated to produce a stronger impression of Mary's innocence, and the guilt of her accusers, than all the rhetoric of the most eloquent of her literary champions, from Lesley down to Chalmers, while, at the same time, the generous efforts made by her to evince her gratitude by removing the pecuniary obstacles to his marriage with Mademoiselle La 122 MARY STUART. Verrlere proves that the relations of sovereign and subject were strictly preserved between Mary Stuart and George Douglas, notwithstanding the insinuations of political cal- umny and the poetic fictions of romance. " My health," writes Mary the second week in May/ " is but very indifferent. I am strictly guarded, and without any means of arranging my affairs either here, in Scotland, or abroad, unless M. de la Mothe, by command of the King, takes pity upon me. I have just thirty persons, men, women, servants, and officers, as you will perceive by the list and the new orders, which will show whether I am a prisoner or not. Koullet has a continual fever, which is the reason why I cannot write to you more at length, which would be trouble- some to me just now. Several of my people are ill, so also is M. de Eoss ; therefore he hears nothing about my afltairs."' 2 Poor Mary was unconscious of the real cause of the silence of her unlucky minister, who, being that very day subjected to a rigorous examination before Burleigh, Sadler, and Sir "Walter Mildmay, touching his correspond- ence with Alva, heard rather more than was agreeable or convenient. The painful news of his arrest, and the inter- dict placed on the exchange of letters between her and him, was a few days afterwards announced to her by the Earl of Shrewsbury. She vehemently protested against it as a violation of the international law, that rendered the persons of ambassadors sacred. She wrote to La Mothe Fenelon on the 3d of June to notify the circumstances to him, telling him she was ignorant of the cause, or how he could have displeased the Queen of England, unless it were by remaining in London to attend to business after the other Commissioners for the treaty had been dismissed. 3 "I beg you," she says, "to show my good sister that the necessity of my affairs required it, of which all intelligence is now cut off. I am willing to do all I can to satisfy her, and if it be not agreeable for her to have my ambassador there at present, let her send him to me." Mary then adverts 1 Mary to Archbishop Beton, Sheffield Castle, May 13, 1570 » Ibid. » LabanoJBP, vol. iii, p. 278. MARY STUART. 123 doubtfully to tlie cliances of the return of Morton with ex- tended powers, for the renewal of the treaty Elizabeth had promised to arrange. " But I know not," continues she, " on what footing matters are now, seeing that it is so long since I have had any tidings. I perceive the passages are as strictly guarded as I am myself, none of my people being permitted to pass ; and every one suspected of bringing letters to me is stopped, searched, and despoiled of them. I pray you to remonstrate with my good sister on these proceedings, as contrary to the advancement of the said treaty." To Burleigh she wrote: "If we could conjecture in what manner the Bishop of Ross, our ambassador, might have offended the Queen, our good sister, in any sort to merit the strait imprisonment he is casten into, we would be very sorry, and more prompt to give him greater punishment than we think she may lawfully put him to." ^ Mary's perplexity was succeeded by indignation, on learning that three hundred English harquebussiers had been sent into Scotland to strengthen the cause of the rebel faction ; and she writes on the 12th of June to La Mothe Fenelon, repre- senting, in lively terms, the perfidy of EHzabeth's proceed- ings after inveigling her into prescribing pacific measures to her adherents, and entreats that the King of France will act consistently with the terms of the ancient alliance between their realms, by sending troops to Scotland to resist this unprovoked invasion. She pleads eloquently, but not for herself.^ " I am resolved," she says, "to prefer the preserva- tion of my kingdom to my life ; and rather than the crown, which for long ages has remained in the right blood whence I am descended, be in danger of falling into any other less cer- tain, I shall esteem my life well employed. But I cannot continue much longer in the state in which I am. 1 have been very ill for some days past, not so much from the weariness of my captivity and ill-treatment, as to see the gradual decay and- destruction of my realm." During the whole of the spring and summer Mary continued to write impassioned letters to La Mothe Fenelon and her own » Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 280. * Ibid., p. 282. 124 MARY STUART. ambassador at Paris, Archbishop Beton, complaining of the perfidious treatment she had experienced from Eh'zabeth, and detailing, at some length, the proceedings of Grange and , Lethington, who, resisting for once the proffered bribes of England, were holding out Edinburgh Castle against Len- nox. Of all these matters, in spite of the rigorous interdict on her receiving letters from Scotland, she appears to have obtained full and accurate information, and expresses great confidence in their zeal for her service. They had held a parliament in her name, at which protests were entered against the usurped authority of the Regent Lennox, and the treasonable acts of the section of the nobles by whom he was supported ; and all the ministers who refused to pray for Queen Mary and her son, as the Prince of Scotland, ' and persisted in calling him the King, were enjoined to quit Edinburgh.^ One of Mary's servants having arrived from France the third week in July, with letters and various articles for her use. La Mothe Fen^lon obtained permission for him to jiroceed to Sheffield Castle and deliver them. " It was a great consolation," she says, " to receive the good news from France, and to learn some little of my affairs, though I had not the opportunity of replying, the bearer not being per- mitted to remain long enough for that. He arrived the day before yesterday, and was kept till eight or nine in the evening before he was allowed to deliver his two packets, which was done publicly, and he was not suffered to speak to me except in a loud voice." After complaints of her ill health and need of better advice, she says : " In the mean time I am of opinion that the spring of Buxton, which is near this place, might be of service to me in relieving the swelling and hardness of my side. It is the proper season, and I pray you to request that I may be permitted to go ' On the death of the Regent Moray, Queen Mary had bestowed, as far as her will went, the rich Priory of St Andrews on Grange, a circumstance which elicited the following sarcastic obsei'vations from his old confederate Randolph, in a letter from Berwick : " Brother William, — It was indeed most wonderful unto me when I heard you should become a prior. That vocation agreeth not with anything that ever I knew in you, saving for your religious life led under the cardinal's hat when we were both students at Paris."— State Paper Office MS., May 1570. MARY STUAET. 125 there ; and answer boldly, Monsieur de la Mothe F^nelon, that neither myself nor any of ray people will give cause to think it is to hold conference with any one, either there or on the journey, nor to enter into any intrigue."! Eliza- beth refused the indulgence solicited, with the dry observation, " I should much like to learn what doctor it is who has given her that advice." ^ Mary, who, like all pining invalids, had set her mind on trying the remedy prescribed, which appeared so easy and within her reach, felt the disappointment keenly. She caused both the unkind refusal and the discourteous man- ner of it to be reported to M. de Foix, the French envoy- extraordinary for the marriage-treaty between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. She had, however, much more serious grounds for complaint : letters had been inter- cepted by her friends in Scotland and transmitted to her, written by Elizabeth's ambassador, Randolph, to the Re- gent Lennox, the Earl of Leicester, and others, suggest- ing the expediency of getting rid of her by poison."^ These she requested La Mothe Fenelon, as her ambassador was in prison, to lay before the English Queen and her Council, with a suitable remonstrance ; and also to send copies of them to the King of France, whose protection she implored. "You know," writes she to La Mothe Fenelon, "the information that was sent to me from divers places before these letters fell into my hands — even before my illness — that I should be poisoned. And it is only reasonable, as Randolph mentions how I ought to be despatched, that 1 should be assured of my keeper, otherwise it would declare openly that they will give opportunity for putting the same into execution, and encourage those who are engaged in the plot to lay hands upon me. I pray you to keep the letters, and send them back to me after you shall have received the answer." Leicester, to whom they were shown, affected to give another sense to these murderous letters, expressing his opinion " that Randolph meant nothing more than to say that the adverse party would be very glad if they 1 Mary to La Mothe Fenelon, July 25, 1571— Labanoff. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 311. 126 MARY STUART. were rid of their Queen." l As for Eandolph, he utterly denied having written them at all ; but ^ Mary was too well acquainted with Randolph's writing and style to be thus satisfied ; and she continued to express her conviction thart her life was in imminent danger from the practices of the Earl of Lennox, who had been accused of suborning one of his dependants to poison her in her childhood, in order to bring himself nearer to the royal succession of Scotland, and his Avife to that of England. His designs against her life at this time tended to a judicial murder rather than a silent assassination, for he had ratified the secret treaty, originally arranged by the Earl of Moray with Elizabeth, for her delivery into Scotland in exchange for the Earl of Northumberland, with the understanding that she was to be tried and executed six hours after her arrival in that realm. Blinded by the delusive negotiations for an amicable treaty with her rebels, Mary appears to have been utterly unconscious of this murderous pact, which was indeed conducted so privily that its record is confined to Burleigh's circumstantial instructions to his nephew, Killi- grew, for renewing it with the Regent Mar, and carrying it into execution through his co-operation. The defenceless life of the captive Queen was once more preserved from the malice of her powerful foes. Lennox, like Moray, was suddenly cut off in the midst of an abor- tive scheme of villany, without being permitted to gratify his insatiable thirst for her blood. A small but intrepid party of gentlemen, headed by Lord Claud Hamilton, dashed into Stirling on the 3d of September, and after a short, sharp conflict, surrounded and captured the usurp- ing Regent ; but as rescue was approaching. Captain Calder fired and lodged the contents of his piece in his body, amidst the vengeful shouts of " Remember the Arch- bishop " from the Hamiltons. The Earl of Mar, being in possession of Stirling Castle and the person of the little King, obtained the regency, the mark at which his ambition had so long pointed. His life-lease of it proved even briefer ^ LabanofiF, iii. 340. MARY STUART. 127 than the term decreed to his predecessors in that fatal dignity. So great was Lennox's -unpopularity, even with his own party, that the Confederate Lords, with the exception only of Eutiiven, Methven, and Lindsay, wrote to Queen Elizabeth a few days before his slaughter, expressing their desire for him to leave Scotland ; they had entered into one of their ominous bands against him, and sworn that they would not permit the Prince to be carried into England. " There is great appearance,'' wrote M. Verac, the French Envoy, " that if the King would send thp smallest force to this country, he would reduce everything to his will. Inform his Majesty that if he expended somewhat among the con- fidential servants of these lords, it would be the means of gaining them. The nature of these people is to be always asking, and not to do anything for nothing. . . You cannot believe how little reliance is to be placed on them ; the more I see of them the less confidence I have in them. For a crown they would betray their own fathers." ^ The detention of her person in an English prison, as at the death of Moray, rendered it impossible for Mary to improve the crisis for her restoration to her throne. The hearts of her faithful subjects yearned in vain for her return to heal the wounds of the bleeding land, but they were to behold no more the kindly face of her who had, during her five years' personal reign, contributed so largely to the com- fort and prosperity of her people. Mary Stuart, their bright, their beautiful, their generous, their patriotic, and peace-loving Sovereign, was as much lost to them as if the grave had closed over her. Her name was, however, still a powerful inspiration through the length and breadth of Scotland, from the south to the far north, in the Western Highlands and the Isles; and her standard continued to wave proudly on the royal citadel of Edinburgh. Nor was 1 M. Verac to La Mothe Fen^lon, August 20, 1571, St Andrews— Teu- let, vol. ii. p. 290.— The sarcastic diplomatist is not speaking of men who had sacrificed lands and living, like Livingston, Seton, and other loyal adherents of their exiled Queen, but of the sordid traitors who had sold her and their country for English gold. 128 MARY STUART. she ungrateful for the devotion, nor unmindful of the wants of her adherents. It was observed that the garrison of Edin- burgh Castle paid for everything in English angels and royals, and French crowns and francs, which betrayed the | source whence their supplies were derived. In June 1570 \ the Bishop of Eoss had received 13,000 francs in angels and crowns from the French Ambassador, due to Queen Mary from her dower-pension. The principal part of this she sent to her loyal servant Fernyhirst, to be applied to the relief of her distressed friends, leaving so little for her own expenses that she was under the necessity of again accept- ing pecuniary assistance from Norfolk, who sent her £200 by the Bishop, and £100 more by the physicians, Apslow and Good, during her sore sickness; but when a further sum was required for the use of the defenders of Edinburgh Castle, he sent word that he neither had the money for that purpose, nor could he raise it on his land. Mary, however, succeeded in borrowing 1000 crowns, which she gave to George Douglas to convey to Scotland, after his sojourn with her at Sheffield in the spring of 1571. But he, not having a passport, and knowing himself to be a marked man, brought it to the French Ambassador, and lodged it in his hands for safety. That Minister having just received 2000 crowns for Queen Mary on account of her dower, which was also intended for the same purpose, consulted Norfolk on the best method of transmitting it safely. Norfolk at first recommended it to be sent by one of her servants named Eenton, sewn up in his doublet, but finally intrusted it to a courier of the name of Brown, sealed up in a bag, addressed to Laurence Banister, his steward at Shrewsbury, who had directions to forward it to LordHerries. Brown, who was probably a spy of Burleigh's, suspecting, by the weight, that the bag contained gold, carried it to him instead of delivering it to Banister. The letters which were found in the bag led to the arrest of Norfolk's confidential servants. Banister, Barker, and Higford. The rack extorted from Banister, and the fear of it from Barker and Higford, admissions of the continuance of Nor- MAEY STUART. 129 folk's matrimonial engagement and correspondence with the captive Queen of Scots. Norfolk, who had ordered Barker to burn all her letters as soon as deciphered, put a bold face on the matter when questioned by a commission of Privy Councillors, and denied the charge ; but this only rendered his case the worse, for Barker, instead of obeying his orders, had secreted all the letters under a mat in the Duke's chamber, together with copies of those which Mary had written to Bidolphi and the Pope, and the keys of the ciphers under a tile .in the roof of Howard House, and, to complete his treachery, he showed the commissioners where to find them. A body of evidence was thus supplied which brought Norfolk to the block. He was arrested at his own house, Sept. 4, and conducted to the Tower on the 7th. ^ ' A highly poetical description of his voyage thither in his own splendid barge, has been given by one of Mary's modern French biographers ; but this, like many other passages in that work, is mere ideality, as will be seen by the official report of the three Commissioners from the Privy Council, of the manner in which they executed the royal warrant : — " So, having prepared a foot-nag for him, I Sir Rauf Sadler on the one side, I Sir Thomas Smith on the other, and I Doctor Wilson coming im- mediately after, with only our servants and friends accompanied, he was, betwixt four and five o'clock in the afternoon, quietly brought into the Tower without any trouble, save a number of idle raskal people, women, men, boys, and girls running about him, as the manner is, gazing at him." — Murdin. p. 9. VOL. VII. I MARY STUART. CHAPTER LEI. STJMMAEY, Mary's imprisonment at Sheffield continued — The arrest of ISTorfolk, and Elizabeth's wrath announced to her — She is bereaved of her faithful servants above the number of sixteen — Her distress and unavailing remonstrances — She is desired to name those who are to stay — Refuses to do so — Shrewsbury makes the selection — Passionate scenes — Her letter to her banished servants — Tender care for Willie Douglas and her other Protestant follower, John Gordon — Her reproachful letters to Elizabeth — Mary hears of the victory of Lepanto, won by her suitor, Don John of Austria — Rigorous nature of her imprisonment — Want of medicines — Buchanan's libels sent to her — She appeals to the King of France for redress — He remonstrates with Elizabeth — Injury to her health from want of exercise — Urgent letter of her physician to Bur- leigh — Mary refuses to attend the prayers and sermons of the Protes- tant church any more — Reasons alleged by her — Shrewsbury leaves Shef- field to preside at Norfolk's trial — Sir Ralph Sadler takes his place as Mary's jailer — Sadler's reports of Mary's demeanour — Norfolk's sentence announced to her — Her distress — Elizabeth's insulting memorial — Mary's retort — Urgency of Elizabeth's ministers for Mary's death — Norfolk's execution — English Commissioners come to Sheffield to question Mary — Her spirited replies— She appeals to the English Parliament — Peril of her life — Evil effect of the massacre of St Bartholomew on her cause — Secret treaty for putting her into the hands of the Regent Mar and rebel party in Scotland — Mar consents to become her executioner — His sudden death — Morton appointed Regent — Mary's rigorous treatment — Her melancholy and irritation — Complains of her coffers from France being opened — Walsingham detains two of her French hoods for a lady who took a fancy to them, supposed Queen Elizabeth — Mary grieved for Lady Livingston's imprisonment — She is removed from Sheffield Castle to the Lodge. The first notice Mary received of the disastrous occurrence which had led to the arrest of her affianced husband, and the trouble in which they were both likely to be involved, MARY STUART. 131 was from the lips of her keeper, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who told her " he had received letters from the Queen his mistress, announcing the great displeasure she had con- ceived, on discovering the unlawful intelligence between her and the Duke of Norfolk, her enterprises for making her escape, her dealings with Kidolphi, for stirring up a fresh rebellion in England, with the assistance of the King of Spain, to whom she had offered to send her son, and that her opinion of Don Carlos was also known ; for which reasons further restrictions were to be put on her liberty, and all her servants were to be removed from her, with the exception of ten men and six women/' Her Scotch secre- tary Curie, her French secretary Roullet, her master of the household, AndreAv Beton (who had succeeded his deceased brother John in that capacity), and her usher, Archibald Beton, were expressly to be excluded from the company she was permitted to retain, the orders for their expulsion being peremptory. i Ladies as well as gentlemen, above the number of sixteen, strangers in the land and destitute of money as they were, were enjoined to depart at two hours' notice, the Scotch to Scotland, and the French to France. In reply to the list of offences with which she had been charged, Mary with great dignity said : " I came hither voluntarily, and put myself into the hands of the Queen your mistress, confiding in her promises of friendship ; and if she, having detained me by force ever since, suspects that I desire my liberty, I do not deny it, albeit I am an inde- pendent Princess, not accountable to her or any one else. I wish, however, to make known to the Most Christian King, my brother-in-law, that I have not resorted to any occult practices for the recovery of my liberty, but sought it through treaties and negotiations. But I perceive plainly that in order to excuse yourselves from the performance of the promises you have made to his Majesty, my good brother, to restore me to my liberty, you accuse me of having wished to take it myself. If I have implored aid of the King of Spain, it has been as I have in like manner of all other ' Queen Mary to La Mothe Fenglon, Sheffield, September 9, 1571— Labanoff. Shrewsbury to Q,ueen Elizabeth, September 9— Wright. 132 MARY STUART. Christian princes, and especially that he would be pleased to concur in any assistance the King of France might give me for the restoration of my realm ; but that it was to excite rebellion in this country is false, and a malicious invention : Ridolphi, of whom ye also speak, had no other commission from me than to procure the succours I wished to obtain for my faithful and obedient subjects, if that can be construed into rebellion by those who have no authority over either them or me. The Duke of Norfolk is subject to this Queen, if so be she can verify those suspicions against him. In regard to my son, he is nearer to me than to this Queen ; and I am not bound to render account to her, or any one else, about offering him to the King of Spain, or any other Prince disposed to be a friend to him and me. But this cannot be, for he is not in my power. Moreover, there was no need for me to offer him where they have done me the honour to demand him of me. The late Queen of Spain, my sister-in-law (whom God ab- solve), wrote to me a little before her death, to propose the marriage of one of her daughters with him. I have her letters about it still. She was the sister of the Most Christian King, and had the same inclinations as my own, but would not herself have proposed anything of the kind, unless with the consent of that Prince. It is to no purpose pretending to conceive jealousy on this subject, for it is no secret. As for Don Carlos, I avow that I cannot but have a good opinion of him, as much for his valour and merit as from respect for those to whom he belongs. In fine, the Queen only makes these things her pretence for retrenching the little liberty she had left me. It is very ill and unjustly done, and I call on God to witness of the wrong." i " None of my servants," continues Mary in her letter narrating these particulars to La Mothe Fenelon, " were per- mitted to come near me during this discourse. I requested permission, however, to speak to Eoullet, before his de- parture, in the presence of my Lord of Shrewsbury, and it was granted ; but when I commanded Eoullet to give a ' Letter of Mary Stuart to La Mothe F^n^lon, from Sheffield, September 8, 1571. MARY STUART. 133 faithful account to the King, my good brother, of all I had done since his return here, of my treatment, and that he left me in peril of my life, Shrewsbury changed his mind, and said ' that the four who had been so especially ordered to leave me should remain, for he had mistaken the orders of the Queen, his mistress, on that point, and desired that neither the master of the household [Andrew Beton] nor Roullet, who had both prepared for their departure, should go/ I would not name any of the sixteen who, according to his instructions, were to be permitted to remain with me.'" Unmoved by Mary's tears and passionate remonstrances, Shrewsbury called for her check-roll, and required her to name the sixteen whom she desired to remain with her. But all were precious to her, and she would make no distinctions. All had forsaken their families and country to follow her fallen fortunes, and share her hardships in the house of bond- age, and with gratitude and delicacy of feeling that did her honour, she refused to name any in preference to the others. " She showed herself exceedingly sorrowful," says Shrews- bury, " when she heard that some of her servants should be removed from her, and seemed to despair the continuance of her life ; but respecting my duty, without credit to her words, I applied myself to take order in despatching away her servants above the number appointed, and driven I was to name them that should remain about her ; but those that I named would have departed with the rest also, upon failing to have the others still to remain with them, alleging that they would not serve without them, inso- much that I have had more trouble this day than ever I had in one day." ^ The captive Queen thus proceeds with her account of the transaction : " The Lord Shrewsbury has made choice of some of them, and they have remonstrated that they could not serve after that fashion, for he had not retained the proper persons for the various offices necessary for my table, but wanted two or three to perform the duties of butlers, pantlers, and fruiterer, which is not in their Shrewsbury to Burleigh, September 9, 1571. 134 MAEY STUAET. power; so with my permission they have asked for their passports to withdraw. This he refused, and told them that ' he would keep them and make them serve by force/ ^ None of those who remain with me will he permit to stir without the gates of this castle where I am incarcerated. Behold the great cruelty with which I and my people are treated ! Every means of having intelligence with my realm are taken away, and it ap- pears as if this stroke is to complete my ruin. I pray you, Monsieur de la Mothe F^n^lon, to represent this to the King my good brother, that having had the honour to belong to him, besides the ancient and close alliance between us and our predecessors, to entreat him in my behalf not to suffer me to be thus misused. I beg you also that the Archbishop of Glasgow be informed of it, in order that he may solicit both the said King and the Queen my mother-in-law, to make such remonstrances as become them. I have no means of writing to them, and not with- out the greatest difficulty at present to you, in order to prepare you for the poor people who are driven from me in so destitute a condition." After her accustomed prayer that God would grant her patience, she adds : "Since writ- ing this, milord Livingston, whom I thought would have been the bearer, was on the point of setting out, but has been forcibly detained like the others. Eobisson has arrived, as I have seen him from my chamber window at the castle gate : he is now a prisoner, and they have taken from him the packet that he had brought for me, and sent it up to the Court. The said Robisson is strictly guarded, and none of my people are permitted to come near him."^ The following day Mary proceeded with her details : — " Robertson has been added, I understand, to the number of the poor wandering sheep who are to be driven away. If you could see," continues she, "the tears of my un- fortunate servants who are departing miserably, not where they would, but where they must, you would have pity > Letter of Mary Stuart to La Mothe Fenelon, from Shefiaeld, September 8, 1571. * Labanoff, vol. iii. pp. 365, 366. MAEY STUAKT. 135 on them and on me. I cannot feel more sorrow than I do. Worst of all, they would constrain certain Scots among them to go to Scotland, where they dare not appear. One of these is William Douglas, also Archi- bald Beton, and two or three others who would rather be slain here than hanged there. I implore you to see what you can do for them, and to procure that all but sixteen persons be not taken from me, which would leave me not the retinue of a Queen, but a prisoner. Remind them in what honour I was held in France, and that now, as neither my people nor myself are permitted to go out, a few of the usual number might be allowed to remain. If you could obtain so much grace for the poor captive and her poor banished ones, it would be some solace ; if it be the will of God, after so much distress, to fall sick again, as I expect I shall." ^ In this distress Mary even addressed herself to the hostile minister from whom the blow proceeded. She wrote in the style royal, yet with the touching pathos that beseemed a suppliant. " My Lord of Burgtily, seeing liow it is not long since we came forth of one heavy sickness, and habil [liable] to fall again in the same, or else in one more extreme. Through our restriction of liberty this while past and other hard handling, we perceive daylie greater and greater occasion lacks not to make us end shortly such miserable days. We take God to witness if we have merit the treatment at the Queen our sister's hands, which is execute upon us and our poor servants Now, in our feeble estate of person is our servants reduced to the number of xvi. only, with whom it is unpossible we can reasonably be served. For so many will not take on hand to serve us safely, but will depart altogether, to the end they be not cliarged in case any inconvenience happen to us among their hands. And shall we be retained within one chamber from all good air, which is most sovereign for our health, and so left solitar, where those who would practise our destruction may the easelier come by the same 1 " ^ The royal captive then proceeds to represent the hard case of her unfortunate attendants, and to remonstrate against the cruel and oppressive measures that had been ordained in regard to them. ' Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 368. She dates this mournful letter " From my prison chamber, this 9th of September 1571." * Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 369. 136 MARY STUART. "The rest of our servants, exceeding that number, knows not whither to go. There is no Scottish man, or very few of them, that has remained with us that dare hazard to pass in Scotland, unless they would deliberately put their own heads into the cord. And to pass in France, the Earl of Shrewsbury refuses them passport. What shall become of William Douglas, who has saved our life forth of Lochleven, and others that since has continually reipained beside us 1 Shall they be led expressly to the butchery amongst the rest 1 It is too great cruelty that is meant to have us and them so handled. Nov can the French officers who has served us these many years have license to remain in the country or town near to us, | to attend the urgent necessity we may have of their service. When we were yet most extremely handled in Lochleven by our rebels, they were suffered, as many of them as liked, to remain within the realm where they pleased. But now we know not how to despatch them, they shall be so driven to poverty for lack of means, being so far from us, which partly they have beside where we may be. Wherefore we pray you, my Lord of Burghly, to have pity, and be a suitor to the Queen our sister, to consider better of our state." ' She demands more consideration, on the grounds that she came voluntarily to seek assistance from the Queen his Sovereign, confiding in her promises of friendship, alleging that otherwise she shall accuse both the said Queen and her councillors in her last hour of being the pursuers and takers of her life ; and that " she shall, God willing, make both her hard treatment and her innocency known to all Christian princes. Albeit," she naively adds, " such as we would despatch to that effect cannot have free passage." In her next letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, she mentions that Bastian was on the list of those who were to be driven from her ; but as a particular favour he had been permitted to remain with her, being a very necessary ser- vant, and " who," continues she, " during these sad times, cheers me with his inventions and work, which, besides mv books, is all the recreation that is left me." Poor Marv ! it was well that cares like hers could be thus occasionally beguiled. Bastian's occupation of Master of the Revels was gone, and his title in her lugubrious English prisons a melancholy joke, no doubt where, for lack of his merrymen, and their paraphernalia, scenery, and music, his comic powers must have been confined, like King Lear's fool, to the endeavour to enliven the discrowned Sovereign ^ Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 371— September 9, 1571. MAEY STUAET. 137 with quips, and cranks, and flashes of fancy; and it would have cost her a severe pang to lose this relic of the royal state that surrounded her at the gay Tournelles, fair j Fontainebleau, old Holyrood, and festive Stirling. Pro- bably Bastian, being a pleasant fellow, contributed to enliven the Shrewsbury family and household, as well as his captive Queen and her ladies, keeping the whole house in good humour, and therefore he was allowed to tarry, when Willie Douglas, Archibald Beton, John Gordon, and the rest of her " poor flock of wandering sheep," as Mary termed them, were barbarously driven away from her. Continuing to speak of Bastian, Mary tells the Archbishop that he tarried with her, both in Scotland and England, at her request, " where," says she, " he and his wife ^ served me well and faithfully, and now having children, and nothing to support them, his friends have promised to advance him if he will come to France ; wherefore I beg you to look out for some office which he might serve by deputy, and receive the profits, that, in case I die in this prison, he may not be left wholly destitute ; and if I live, that he may have the better courage to run my hard fortunes with me. I leave to your better judgment what the value of the income should be, up to two thousand francs, which might be secured to him. Not daring to write more, I pray you to give me your advice. Order must be taken to send the wages for this year to him and all those who remain." ^ Mary suspected that the removal of the most tried and courageous of her household band was the prelude for her murder. She communicates to La Mothe Fenelon her ideas on that head, not with the agitation and alarm natural to a helpless unprotected woman, surrounded by the pitiless instruments of a jealous rival and unscrupulous foes, but with the calm courage of a Christian philosopher, looking the peril in the face unshrinkingly, and desiring to set her house in order in preparation for the event : — ' Margaret Cawood, who liad assisted lier and Darnley in their escape from Holyrood. , , t o ^ Marie Stuart to the Archbishop of Glasgow, Sheffield, Sept. 10,1571 — Labanofif, vol. iii. pp. 373, 374. 138 MARY STUART. " After the bad treatment I have received up to the present hour, seeing what is prepared against me, I can expect nothing but death, with which I have been so often menaced, as I doubt not you can bear witness. Now they put upon me that I have wished to conspire against this Queen and i her state ; and under that pretext they seek to deprive me of my kingdom | and my life. Several days ago I wrote to you touching my affairs, but I ' suspect my letters have not reached you. The principal points to which they related was for you to supplicate the King, my good brother, on my part, not to abandon my faithful and loyal subjects to the invasion which she (Elizabeth) is preparing against them, but to succour them, and main- tain his alliance. For the rest, that you should do as much for me in con- templation of my last want." ' It was then, while her heart was hot within her, and she thought there was but one step between her and death, she addressed the touching farewell letter containing her maternal advice, and what she supposed to be her last admonitions and directions to those faithful adherents of her fallen fortunes, who had been so pitilessly driven from her, and cast forth as houseless and destitute strangers and pilgrims in a hostile land. Maeik Stuart to her Banished Servants. " My faithful and good servants, seeing that it has been the will of God to visit me with much adversity, and now with this rigorous imprisonment and banishment of you my servants from me, I render thanks to the same God who has given me strength and patience to endure it, and pray this good God that He will give you the like grace, and that you will be con- soled, since your banishment is for the good service you have performed for me, your princess and mistress, for at least you will be greatly honoured for having given so good proof of your fidelity at such a time of need; and when it shall please the good God to restore me to liberty, I shall never be wanting to any of you, but will recompense you all according to my ability. For the present I have written to my ambassador for your sustenance, not having it in my power to do better for you as I could wish. And now at your departing, I chai'ge you all, in the name of God, and for my blessing, that you be good servants of God, and not to murmur against Him for any affliction that may befall you, for thus He visits His own. I recommend to you the faith in which you have been baptised and instructed in my com- pany, having remembrance that out of the ark of Noe there is no safety ; and even as you made no profession of service to any other princess than me alone, so I beseech you make confession with me of one God, one faith, one Catholic Church, as the greater number of you have already done. And especially you who have been newly recalled from your errors, seek to be more perfectly instructed and grounded in the faith, and pray God to give 1 Labanoif, vol. iii. p. 76. MARY STUAllT. 139 you constancy in the same, for to such God will never deny His grace. And for you, Master John Gordon and William Douglas, I implore God, by his Holy Spirit, to inspire your hearts with that in which I could not more prevail. " Secondly, I command you that ye live in friendship and holy charity with one another, and now being separated from me, that you mutually assist each other from the means and graces that God has given you, and, above all, pray to God for me. Make my very affectionate commendations to the French Ambassador in London, and make known to him the state in which I am. And in France present my humble remembrances to all my uncles and friends, and particularly to Madame my grandmother, and that some one of you will go to see her on my part. Entreat my uncles to make very urgent suit to the King, the Queen, and Monsieur, to succour my poor subjects in Scotland ; and if 1 die here, to take my son and my friends into the same protection as myself, according to the ancient league of France with Scotland. Make my commendations to my lords of Fle- ming and Glasgow, to George Douglas, and to all my good subjects. Tell them they are to be of good courage, and not to be paralysed by my adversity, and that they must every one do the best they can to solicit of all princes aid for our party without regarding me, for I am content to endure all sorts of afflictions and sufferings, even unto death, for the liberty of my country. If I die I shall only regret not having the means to recompense their ser- vices and the troubles they have endured in my quarrel ; but I hope, if it should be so, that God will not leave them unrewarded, and will make my son and the Catholic princes, my friends and allies, take them under their protection. If Lord Seton wants to have tidings of me, send him the copy of this letter. " Finally, if I have not been so good a mistress to you as your necessi- ties required, God is my witness that the good-will has never been wanting in me, but the means ; and if I have seemed sharp in my reproofs to any of you, God knows that it has been with the intention of doing you good, not from any want of affection. I pray you to console yourselves in God. And you, William Douglas, be assured that the life you hazarded for mine will never be neglected while I have a friend hving. "Do not part company till you are at the Court of France, but go all together to seek my ambassador there, and declare to him all you have seen and heard of me and mine. " I pray God from the depths of an afflicted heart to be according to His infinite mercy the protector of my country and of my faithful subjects, and that He will pardon those who have committed so many outrages against me, and move their hearts to a prompt penitence, and that He will give you all His grace, and to me also, that we may conform ourselves to His pleasure. " Written in prison, in the Castle of Sheffield, the 18 of September 1571. " If you can keep this letter, carry it to Monsieur de Glasgow as a testi- monial that your services have been agreeable to me. " Your good and favourable mistress, " Maeie R."» 1 Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 378-381. 140 MAllY STUAET. Elizabeth had desired that Lord and Lady Livingston might be used favourably, and granted commodity to depart at their pleasure ; meaning that they were not to be thrust out on the wide world with such Inhuman haste as the others. This indulgence was fortunate for Lady Livingston, who, since her return to her royal mistress after her visit to Scotland, had been attacked with a serious illness. " Lady Livingston/' writes Shrewsbury, " remains still sick here, as she hath been this eight weeks, not able to travel. I desire to know her Majesty's pleasure about her, for she is not of the number appointed, because she meaneth to depart hence so soon as she is able to travel.'" Mary wrote an earnest and pathetic remonstrance to Elizabeth, protesting against this cruel separation from her attached servants, intending to send it by Lord Living- ston, accrediting him to explain her conduct from first to last, fondly imagining that the testimony of a Protestant nobleman of his high rank and unsullied honour would have due weight with a Sovereign of the Reformed faith ; but when her letter was ready and sealed, Shrewsbury told her that Lord Livingston could not be allowed to leave the Castle. She then opened her letter, added a postscript complaining of this additional grievance, and handing it to Shrewsbury, begged him to forward it himself. Lord Livingston was finally allowed to depart with the other expelled members of Queen Mary's household band from Sheffield Castle, and she accredited him as her envoy to the King of France, to explain the manner in which she and her servants had been treated, and to solicit the intervention of her brother-in-law in her behalf. In her letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, of the 19th of Sep- tember, she says : " Lord Livingston will tell you how he left me. Assist him to speak to the King according to his instructions, and speak boldly, for my hfe is in danger if he does not declare himself against this Queen who treats me thus. She has sent to summon my faithful subjects by a herald (as I am informed) to submit to the authority pre- tended to be in the name of my son ; in other words, to her pleasure and obeisance, otherwise she will invade MARY STUAET. 141 tliem with fire and sword. Since then I will no longer allow myself to be deceived by her fair words and dissimu- lations, nor allow her to take her footing in my realm as she hath done." " Give orders that money be sent to Scotland according to my previous instructions, by means of the merchants, and that it be enough, and to me also, for I have none left."i She expresses alarm lest a packet of his letters which she had not received should have fallen into Elizabeth's hands, especially as M. de Fo'ix, a previous French ambassador, had just arrived at the Court of Eng- land, to whom La Mothe Fen(^lon had unadvisedly confided a copy of her two last ciphers. De Foix had actually com- municated these ciphers to Burleigh, and Elizabeth had been much irritated by the decipherment of an intercepted letter, in which Mary had not only commented on the per- fidy practised towards herself, but made some sarcastic obser- vations on the matrimonial treaty between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. La Mothe F^nelon, greatly annoyed at this breach of faith in his countryman and brother diplo- matist, apprised Mary of what had occurred, advised her never to use that cipher again, and reminded her of the in- trigues de Foix had formerly practised against her with the Earl of Arran.^ Mary mentions her noble young Protestant friend, John Gordon, whose reconciliation with the Church of Eome she much desired. She was more zealous than wise in this, for he was employing his pen warmly in her behalf, and one literary champion of the Keformed faith was calcu- lated to have more influence in her favour than an army of panegyrists of her own persuasion. " Master John Gordon has told me,'' writes she, " that he owes some money over there [in Paris], which he will be constrained to pay imme- diately. I pray you to advance a year of his pension, which is two hundred francs."^ It certainly was not for the lucre of gain that this accom- 1 Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 382. ^ Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 367. De Foix's reports are frequently quoted by ■writers who take unfavourable views of Mary's character ; but it is appa- rent, from his treacherous and inimical proceedings against her, that he wrote under the influence of strong prejudice. * Ibid., vol. iii. p. 384. 142 MARY STUART. plished young gentleman attached himself to the cause of his captive Sovereign, shared her English prisons, and de- voted his time and talents to her service, even so far as to tilt a literary lance in her defence against her formidable adversary John Knox. Mary wrote a particular letter of recommendation for John Gordon to the Archbishop of Glasgow, which, although her zeal for his conversion to the Romish Church may pos- sibly be displeasing to some readers, is too characteristic to be omitted : — "From Sheffield, 18th of September, 1571. " Monsieur de Glasgow —Although John Gordon, the bearer of this, be Protestant, he has been to me a faithful servant, and has written against Knohs and his ministers for my authority, and in time, I hope among learned men, might be reclaimed, and for this purpose I hope you will procure some of the most learned, as Mr Rignan had begun ; and be- cause milord Huntly and milord Galloway, his father, are in the Castle [of Edinburgh], and all their property lost for my sake, I pray you to have him recommended according to the open letter of which he is the bearer [here a cipher occurs], and have his pension continued, pains taken to gain him, for he is a well-disposed and learned young man, belonging to worthy friends. If he could be sent to his uncle, v^ho is a Jesuit, I doubt not he would be restored. For the rest, be careful to send supplies of money, and to have intelligence with the Castle, and act as a faithful servant to God and your country. Take you care of our country, since I have no means of doing it, and assure yourself of having in me a good friend and mistress. Solicit all the ambassadors and my relations to assist in your plaint for me. I pray God that He may give you His grace, and to me patience. Request the King to obtain for me a confessor to administer the sacrament to me, in case God should summon me one way or other. " Your very good mistress and friend, " Marie R." » After several weeks' silence, Mary wrote to Elizabeth, complaining of the harsh usage to which she had been sub- jected through the malice of those who hate her without a cause. She says : — " About my condition I will not importune you, for knowing how little you care about it, I leave it to the mercy of God, resolving to live patiently in adversity and prison, to suffer, if it be His will, and to die also, as soon as it be His pleasure to deliver me from this wicked world. Not knowing in the mean time how long it may be His will that I remain in it, being visited by sickness, caused as much by the many hardships to which I have not been accustomed, as by your rigour, I pray you also (being ' Labanoff, vol. iii. p. 373. MARY STUAET. 143 compelled to this by the urgency of my conscience) to permit me to have a priest of the Catholic Church, of which I am a member, to console me, and exhort me to my duty. If these petitions be granted, I will pray to God in prison, and dying, to render your heart such as may be agreeable to Him and salutary to yourself ; but if I am denied, I will lay the charge on you of answering before God, for such failures in my duty to Him which may arise from your refusing to accord me the permission I have implored of you." It is scarcely necessary to observe that, if Mary had possessed that knowledge of human nature which ought to be the most important of all royal studies, she would not have addressed her expostulations andpetitions to her haughty and triumphant kinswoman in a tone that, by irritating and piquing her self-love, was sure to increase her animosity. When she condescended to ask a favour, it was generally in the language of reproach. This is even implied in the elo- quent burst of maternal feeling with which she concludes her letter : — • " I have yet another request to make, of small import- ance to you, but which would be a source of infinite conso- lation to me. It is, that you will please to have pity on a desolate mother, from whose arms an only child, her sole joy and hope of future happiness in this world, has been torn, and permit me to write open letters, at least, to make inquiries touching his real state, and remind him of his afflicted mother, who might receive some comfort in being assured of his health. I might then remind him of his duty to God and to me, without which no human favour can pro- fit him ; for failing in either of these two so positive com- mandments, God would forget his performance of all the rest. If these requests are accorded, I will endeavour to dispose myself to receive, without murmuring, life or death, or what- soever it may please God to send me from your hands." i Mary's condition was not improved by her passionate appeals to Elizabeth, for on the 9th of November she writes t^us to La Mothe Fenelon : — " I received your two ciphers on the 3d and 17th of last month, but have had no means of answering you till by 1 Mary to Elizabeth from Sheffield, 29th Oct. 1571— Labanofif, vol. ii. pp.389, 390. 144 MARY STUART. this present bearer, after which I fear you will have no tidings from me for a long time, as I have no means, of writing either to you or to Scotland. My people ^ are not allowed to approach the castle gates, and the Earl of Shrewsbury's servants are forbidden to speak to mine. The complaint that this Queen made to you by Burleigh, has been followed by fresh outrages and menaces to me. I am shut up within my chamber, of which they even in- ^ tend to block up the windows, and to make a door, to give them power to enter when I shall be asleep, not allowing any of my people to come near me but footmen ; and I am deprived of the rest of my servants. She has made known to me that this usage will only end with my life, after having made me languish so cruelly." " The Earl of Shrewsbury, as a great favour, the other day told me he would lead me ' on the leads of this house to take the air. I was with him there about an hour, and, in the course of conversation, he intimated that I was going to be sent back and put into the hands of my rebels. He spoke plainly of associating my son in my government." ^ With' a spirit unbroken by the measures that had been adopted for her intimidation, she adds : " I have no means of making my determination known to the Earls of Mar and Morton, but I tell you freely that I am resolved to die Queen of Scotland. . . . I am a miserable captive; entreat the King, my good brother, to protect my realm, conform- ably to the ancient alliance, in good earnest, without amus- ing me with terms of agreement proposed by my enemies, for I am determined, rather than yield aught that would derogate from my dignity, to lose all." u I regret much," she adds, " the determination of this Queen in regard to the Duke of jSTorfolk, and pray God to turn her from it." A source of peculiar annoyance is thus unfolded in her postscript: "Not being able to write to the Queen, my good mother, I am constrained to mention to you what I would not willingly to any one but her, which is to intreat her to obtain of this Queen the favour that my linen, and that of my women, be not 1 Labanoff, vol. iii. pp. 392, 393. MAKY STUART. 145 seen and examined by the porters of this wretched prison, which, they say, she has ordered to be done.^ M. de Shrewsbury or his wife may appoint me any laundress whom they approve and can confide in, so that it pass not through the hands of men." The fate of this confidential communication is testified by its decipherment being endorsed in Lord Burleigh's hand : " 7 November 1571. The Scottes Queues letters to ye Anibass'' intercepted at Sheffield."' Thus did Elizabeth learn the petition that Mary intended the Queen-mother of France to have communicated. Mary's next letter to La Mothe Fenelon shared the same fate, and unveiled still further the contempt with which she regarded Elizabeth's deceptive promises and professions, and the ungenerous pol- icy that had prompted her support of the Scotch rebels. It also betrayed the fact of the close correspondence which, in spite of the jealous precautions adopted by her jailers, she had hitherto carried on with that minister. In another of these intercepted letters she writes : " I send this at a ven- ture, and it will not be got into the boy's hands without much difficulty and danger. He had not found means to give mine that I wrote to you to Forbes, who was compelled to depart without them." The news of the brilliant victory of Lepanto, won by the brave candidate for Mary's hand, Don John of Austria, on the 7th of the preceding month, had reached the royal cap- tive in her sternly guarded prison at Sheffield, and glad- dened her desolate heart, for she writes to La Mothe Fenelon in this same letter of the 13th of November : " I have praised God, and will praise Him infinitely, for this happy victory, which it has pleased Him to grant the Christian ar- mament over the Turk." ^ Meantime her personal prospects 1 LabanofP, vol. iii. p. 398. 2 The Turks had made a marauding voyage along the coasts of southern Europe, perpetrating frightful atrocities on the flourishing sea-board cities of Italy. All Christendom was panic-stricken, and every State that had been aggrieved by the cruel barbarians, furnished a quota of galleys, which they put under the command of the young hero Don John of Austria ; — Colonna commanding the Pope's galleys, Andria Doria the Genoese, and Venerini those of Venice, Don John of Austria being generalissimo of the VOL. VII. K 146 MARY STUART. appeared daily involved in deeper gloom. Lesley, Bishop of Ross, was lodged in the Tower, and underwent very sharp examinations from the Privy Council on the subject of her correspondence with Norfolk and the Duke of Alva. He assumed a high tone at first, insisting on the inviolability of his office as an ambassador ; but being menaced with the rack, he consented to answer, and his replies were con- sidered to supply additional evidence against both the Duke and his captive Sovereign. The era was replete with horror. A committee of the Privy Council attended day and night in the Tower for up- wards of a fortnight, to superintend the rackings of the Duke's unfortunate household, who were severely tortured by Elizabeth's express order ; — we fear this enormity must be imputed to her. At last Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Burleigh, begging release from the diabolical office of tor- mentor. " I suppose," he says, " we have gotten as much as i& to be had ; yet to-morrow do we intend to bring a couple of them on the rack, not in hope to get anything worthy of that pain or fear, but because it is so earnestly commanded unto us." ^ A diplomatic banquet was given by La Mothe Fenelon on the 11th of November, at which Burleigh and Eliza- beth's principal ministers being present, the Earl of Leices- ter declared " that it was not his Sovereign's intention united Christian fleets. Near the classical Corinth, October 7th, 1571, the predatoiy Turkish fleet came out of the little strong bay of Lepanto, scorning the rnighty iron chain which would have defended them from the attacks of the Christian naval powers. Don John of Austria was rowed by Turkish galley-slaves, while the cruel Admiral Bassa Ali, brother-in-law of Selim II., was driven over the waves by the exertions of Christian galley-slaves. Three hours the terrible conflict continued, till Don John, overcoming the Turkish Admiral when boarding him, took him prisoner, and having his head struck off' in the midst of the fight, hoisted it on his flag-staff. Those who know anything of the atrocities of this barbarian will not blame him. One hundred and thirty Turkish war- galleys were taken by Don John, who was severely wounded. But Europe was saved, and the name of the young hero resounded on all sides. He returned to Messina, the rendezvous of the allied fleets, and anthems were sung, and sermons of thanksgiving were preached, all over delivered Europe, from the text, " There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." The hero and deliverer of southern Europe was proud of being reckoned the suitor of the captive and calumniated Mary Stuart. ' Lodge's Illustrations, vol. i. 512— Murdin's State Papers, 95. MARY STUART. 147 ever to restore the Queen of Scots to liberty, being of opinion that she could not live a single hour securely in her authority if she did, and begged his Excellency, if he wished to establish a happy peace and alliance between the three realms, never again to mention the name of the Queen of Scots in any way." ^ Mary was now rigorously confined to her own chamber at Sheffield Castle, none of the few officers of her household who yet remained were permitted to approach her, and only one or two of her ladies ; and though she became seriously ill, her physician, M. Castellaune, was not allowed access to her till a warrant could be obtained from Burleigh, licensing him to hold conference with her in private. Then there were no medicines in the castle for him to make up his pre- scriptions, and none could be obtained nearer than London. He wrote to Burleigh imploring for a supply of what was necessary, but no answer was returned ; then to the French Ambassador, to beg drugs and cordials for her use, but his letter was intercepted, and never reached the party to whom it was addressed. The piteous little note written by the royal invalid in her distress to that minister, telling him that she had used up all the ointment with which her side and sto- mach ought to be rubbed to allay her spasmodic agonies, and asking him to send her a fresh supply, with some cinna- mon water and confiture of black grapes, had the like fate ; and she remained in a state of suffering from day to day, growing rapidly worse, and vainly expecting the desired medicaments, from which she hoped to derive relief.^ While stealthily penning a melancholy little billet to La Mothe Fenelon, Mary was interrupted by the entrance of Bateman, one of the government officials in the Castle, who had just returned from the Court. She had made him the bearer of a letter to Elizabeth, requesting the indulgence of a priest to administer religious consolation and the sacra- ments of her church to her in her sickness, but he brought her instead a copy of the octavo edition in Latin of Buch- anan's indecent libel on herself, which had just been anony- ' Despatches of La Mothe Fenglon, vol. iv. pp. 282, 283. * LabanofiF. 148 MAEY STUART. mously printed in London with a new title-page, setting forth the slanderous accusations with which he had stig- . matised her in the coarsest terms. Mary declared " that Bateman dared not have shown it to her unless he had had express orders to do so." She wrote to La Mothe F^ndlon to ask the King her brother-in-law to remonstrate against so great an outrage on her, and to demand that the Queen of England should inflict condign punishment on the ^ authors, printers, and publishers of such books. " I require also,'' continues Mary, " my good brother to permit in his realm (where I have friends and relations desirous of infor- mation in all that touches me) that the books made for my just defence, already printed or to be printed, may be freely published, that truth may be opposed to imposture and falsehood, with so many manifest and indubitable proofs, that there shall be no lack of persons of honour and reputa- tion who will acknowledge them [the books in her vindica- tion], by the testimony of their names, since the ill-will can no longer be dissembled of those who, up to the present hour, have procured me so many troubles and afilictions." ^ Of these, the insult of which she complains was surely not the least bitter, though she speaks of the injurious publica- tion, to which her attention had just been called, with the calm contempt it merited, as " the defamatory book of an atheist." ^ The friendly Ambassador faued not to demand, in his Sovereign's name, the suppression of Buchanan's libel on Queen Mary, but though the translation had been made by Dr Wilson, the Master of the Kolls, under the superin- tendence of her prime-minister Cecil, and was dedicated to herself, and published in London under her express patron- age, Elizabeth pretended that it was printed in Scotland, and that she had nothing to do with it." ^ The pertinacity of the Star-Chamber inquisitors in de- manding minute particulars of a magical or an astrological calculation, respecting the future fates of Queen Elizabeth, and the success of the marriage of Norfolk and Mary, is remarkable. The curious little fact was elicited in the • Queen Mary to La Mothe Fenelon, Nov. 22, 1571— Labanoff, iv. 4. « Ibid. ^ Resum6 Chronologique— Labanoff. MARY STUAET. 149 course of Barker's examination, that the Bishop of Boss amused himself, while in London, by making a collection of English songs and ballads in a book for the amusement of his captive Sovereign, and, finding Barker laid claim to poetic talents, sent the album to him, asking him to write an original contribution in English metre in it, not dream- ing that it would ever become matter of Star-Chamber in- vestigation. The following quartrain indicates that the effusion was personal to the royal prisoner : — _ " When thou hast felt what fortune is, And found her firm to few, Thy trade in truth and faith performed Shall clear all cloudy show." ' " Some more verses there were which I do not remem- ber," pursues Barker in his deposition. " The Bishop being with the Queen of Scots at Chatsworth, showed her the rhyme, and told her more of me, wherefore she wrote a letter of thanks to me, as he said, and in the letter maketh mention of Mr Banister and Cantrell. The letter I think he laid up in some corner of my study, for I do not remem- ber that I tore or burnt it, but where it is to a certainty I do not remember now." It was not probable that the Star- Ohamber would rest contented without a view of Mary's letter ; it was forthwith ferreted out of Mr Barker's study, and is as follows : — " Feiend, — I have received your verse and like it well, and thanks you for your pains, which the Bishop of Ross, my trusty counsellor, hath reported, whereof I will not be unmindful, — neither of Banester, whom I pray you make participate hereof, nor of Cantrell, who was the first that bare me goodwill. " And so bid farewell. " From Chatsworth, ultimo Septembris (1570.)" ^ A letter being delivered to Mary by the Earl of Shrewsbury, written by the Bishop of Eoss from his prison in the Tower, she, suspecting that he had been forced to write it by Burleigh in order to entrap her into committing herself in her reply, answered in the style royal by the pen of an amanuensis, " that she had received a letter which • Murdin — Barker's Deposition. « Ibid. 150 MAEY STUART. appeared to be his handwriting, but would remit showing him her mind, on the points it contained, to a more conven- ient time than during their restraint in prison," sarcastically observing, " that his letter reminded her of Isaac's saying, ' It is Esau's hands, but Jacob's voice ;' for though she re- cognised the draughts of his pen, she could not tell who was the inditer of his matter."^ Aware that her letter would be read by Queen and Council, she framed it for that very pur- pose, by expressing her desire for better treatment, stating " that she had been restrained for the last ten weeks within the bounds of her chamber, which, considering her malady, was to the danger of her life. But when it pleased God she left the same, it should be with the constancy of a good Christian, and a Queen descended of such noble blood. Praising God that albeit men had power over her life, they should have none to deprive her by detractions and impostures of the reward and honour due to those who live and die well and generously, rejoicing to depart out of this false world with a free conscience, leaving, she thanks God, a son and heir to succeed her." She added this significant postscript with her own hand : " And if for your necessities you have leave to write to us, let your letters contain no other discourse as long as you are not used in the respect of a free ambassador, for of my part I will not use or credit the counsel of no prisoner till I hear him speak viva voce." She signs herself, " Your good and thankful mistress." Mary gained nothing by her manifestations of royal spirit, save the imprudent satisfaction of acquainting her powerful adversaries with her opinion of their principles. By so doing she gave them additional motives for perse- vering in the cruel policy they were pursuing in regard to her. Her arch-enemy Burleigh writes exultingly to Walsingham on the 7th of December : " Sir Thomas Smith can tell you how straitly the Queen of Scots is kept, having now but ten persons of her own of all sorts. She pretendeth a great fear of her life, and craveth a ghostly father, being Catholic. ' Mary Stuart to the Bishop of Ross, Sheffield, the 22d of November, 1571 — Labauoff, vol. iv. MARY STUART. 151 He can tell you that the Queen's Majesty hath plainly noti- fied to the States of Scotland that she will never suffer the Scottish Queen to resume the government of Scotland, and we are in hand to accommodate between Lethington and Grange [who held out Edinburgh Castle for Mary] and the Eegent. The difficulties in this matter," observes Burleigh, with satire that hit others besides the selfish politicians of Scotland, " are rather particular than politic. They in the Castle look to have their lands restored ; the other party are greedy to keep what they have catched of abbeys, bishop- ricks, &c." A simple definition of the politics of the six- teenth century from one who spoke by experience. The alarming state of Mary's health at this time induced her anxious physician, Dr Castellaune, to write again to Burleigh, reiterating his previous unnoticed report of her sufferings from the deprivation of air and exercise, and the want of proper medicines, mentioning also the fact that he had been reduced to beg for a supply of such things as he judged necessary for her from the French Ambassador, — a fact truly disgraceful to the English Queen and her Council. This letter, an unpublished document of no ordi- nary interest, is too curious to be omitted : — " To the most illustrious the Lord W. Buries, Greeting.^ On the seventh of the calends of November your Excellency wrote to me from London the letter, which you sent to the Lord of Scherusbery, that I was at liberty to commune with the Queen upon her private matters : to which I sent an answer unsealed, which I doubt not has come to your hands. . . . Such, at that time, was the state of her Majesty's health, that, although I readily judged that she was unable to pay me, alone, so much money, I earnestly requested that other physicians might be sent to her ; and as far as I was able I gave the reasons for my advice — namely, that the disease took its origin from the melancholic and bilious humours being dried up, and that it was increasing daily more and more, both on account of the usual bodily exercise being intermitted, and of the painful, impor- tunate, and almost constant workings of the mind. I added further, that I was destitute of the aid of an apothecary, and of almost all the medicines by which these great evils ought to be encountered. All things are now changed for the worse, and greater danger seems to hang over the Queen, on account of the swelling of the left hypochondrium ; frequent dis- > Letter from Burleigh to Walsingham, Dec. 7 — Complete Ambassador . 152. * Cotton MSS., Brit. Mus. Caligula, C. iii,, f. 213.— Latin original. 152 MARY STUAET. charges from the brain ; the greatest debility in the stomach (from which cause the sleep is uneasy and disturbed), constant vomitings, and many other bad symptoms throughout the system. Unless these be coun- teracted as quickly as possible, we can look for nothing but a very dangerous result, of which I would not have you ignorant, noble sir ; and I entreat you to represent the same to the Queen of England, through whose benevolence she may be allowed to enjoy the air more freely, and by some exercise, at least, to recruit her body, worn out by so much suffering. By applying seasonable remedies there might then remain some hope of recovering her health. But so long as she shall be pent within four walls, and oppressed with sorrow so excessive, those remedies which we have hitherto applied will be of no use. If I were allowed personally to state these and other particulars in presence of the Queen of England, I doubt not but that even myself might, by entreaty, induce her to set some bounds to evils so great. Medicines I am destitute of, withal, not only medicines, but even mere simples, since I also am not allowed to go out, in order to procure them, nor have I any person whose fidelity has been well tested, or of whose assistance I can make use with safety and freedom, and I see that nothing but the name of physician has been left to me. These particulars I earnestly desire the Lord de la Mothe to know, that it may not, hereafter, be laid to my charge that I have not performed my duty. I wrote to the same lord, on a former occasion, for him to send the Queen the compound water of cinnamon, some nut- megs, well prepared or seasoned, and certain other medicaments, and Geneva [giji] to compose the pains both of the left hypochondrium and of the stomach, wlien they come on. But, as he has not written in reply, I am compelled to suspect that my letter has not reached his hands. " Finally, I implore you to my utmost power, and appeal to your humanity, that you diligently weigh these matters and place them before the Most Serene Princess, the Queen of England, that she may acknow- ledge (since all other things have failed) that I, in some measure at least, have satisfactorily done my duty. " From Sheiffeild Castle, on the third of the Ides of December, 1571. " Yours, humble as he is, the physician of the Most Serene Queen of Scots, " Castellaunb."' The difficulty Shrewsbury made of forwarding this letter, and his unfeeling comments on the urgency of the poor languishing invalid for hira to do so, her complaints of illness and pining desire for air and exercise, are thus recorded by his own pen in his report to his friend Burleigh of the 12th of December : — " This Qaeen eftsoons made great complaint of her sickly estate, and that she looked verily to perish thereby, and used divers melancholy words, that it is meant it should so come to pass, without help of medicine, and all because I • Endorsed — " Castellaune, the Physician, to Lord Burghley, 1 6th Decem- ber, 1471." MARY STUAET. 153 was not ready to send up her physician's letters unto your lordship, which, indeed, I refused, for that I perceived her principal drift was and is to have some liberty out of these gates, which in no wise I will consent unto, because I see no small peril therein. Notwithstanding, lest she should think that the Queen's Majesty had commanded me to deny her such reasonable means as might save her life by order of physick, I thought it not amiss to send up the said letters, herein enclosed, to be considered on as shall stand with the Queen's Majesty's pleasure."^ The noble jailer proceeds to describe the tender mercies of which the captive Sovereign was the recipient at this time : " I do suffer her to walk upon the leads here, in open air, and in my large dining-chamber, and also in this court- yard, so as both I myself and my wife be always in her com- pany, for avoiding all others' talk either to herself or any • of hers. And sure watch is kept within and without the walls, both day and night, and shall so, God willing, as long as I have the charge." Mary's faithful ladies, against whom no cause of offence could be alleged, save that devoted affection which had rendered them the voluntary companions of her hard lot, were subjected to the like restraints. Dr Castellaune's report of the inimical effect the restraints to which Mary was subjected had produced on her health, wrought no amelioration in her condition, for Elizabeth, even if permitted by her premier to see the letter, was too much exasperated against her unfortunate captive to vouchsafe the slightest indulgence at that period. Mary's death was so earnestly desired by her and her ministers, that medicines continued to be withheld, and air and exercise denied, apparently for the purpose of bringing her life quietly to a premature termination. Mary had, how- ever, a singular capacity for enduring sufferings both of mind and body, and a tenacity of life truly remarkable under circumstances so trying. The outpouring of her sorrowful and indignant feelings in her eloquent and impas- sioned letters probably acted as safety-valves, by relieving her oppressed heart of a portion of its burthen. » Wright's Elizabeth. 154 MARY STUART. Up to the period of her forcible removal from the Lodge to the Castle at Sheffield, the harsh reduction of her faith- ful household band, Protestants as well as Catholics, and the increased rigour of her confinement, Mary had given her presence to the prayers and sermons that were daily made before the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury by their family chaplain in the hall, in like manner as she had previously done at Bolton Castle ; but she now refused to do so any more. Nearly three years of almost constant attendance at the domestic worship of the Reformed Church, having given great offence to the Princes of her own faith, she subse- quently entered into an explanation of her conduct, by stating that she was persuaded to do so by some of the nobles of her own realm, who had accompanied her to England, and considered it desirable for her to conciliate the Protestants, by proving that she did not hold their doctrine in the horror that had been reported. But though she had heard both prayers and preaching in the hall, she had refused to communicate with the Church of England, by partaking of the Sacrament, or being present when it was administered. " Moreover," continues she, " Sir Francis Knollys may remember that he and I have frequently had disputes on the doctrine of the said ministers, of which he took the part, and if he own the truth, as I doubt not, he will acknowledge that from affection to it he has sometimes put himself into a rage," — one of the common but unedifying results of controversy. " Since I have been in the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury,'" pursues Mary, " we had during one Lent a new minister almost every day, with whom I made no difficulty of entering into conversation, and discussion after their preaches. He kept the most learned and ele- vated in rank for the honne bouche, reserving the Bishop of Coventry to preach at the end of the holy week, who among others can bear witness of the account I gave him of the impression made on me during that Lent, which was, in brief, that of all these ministers I could not find two hold- ing the same tenets ; and therefore all these varying opinions on the principal points of our faith, instead of presuading me to the new doctrine, confirmed me in my own, for they gave MARY STUAET. 155 me so many different modes, and all so ill-suited to my notions, that if I had had the inclination to change, they v/ould have made me lose the desire. In two things only I found them to agree, one was making invectives against the Pope and Catholic princes, or, at least, their most distin- guished ministers; the other, in certain forms, which I understand are prescribed to them, to pray for the weal of the realm : for the rest, there was, according to my judg- ment, as many religions among them as heads." It is easy to gather from this sarcastic review of her experience, that ministers imbued with more zeal than knowledge had been selected to preach before her, who, instead of attracting her with the threefold cords of hope, faith, and charity, had repelled her by rousing all the prejudices of her education into a state of active combatism against the doctrine they advocated. Mary says " she did not discontinue her attendance at the daily Protestant services, as was reported, at the breaking out of the Northern Rebellion, nor even when she found herself deluded by conferences and negotiations, which had no other meaning than to mock her ; but when she was told she would not be allowed to pass out of her chamber except to go into the hall to hear the prayers, she indignantly re- fused to do so any more." ^ Sir Ealph Sadler arrived at Sheffield Castle on the 28th of December, to keep guard over Mary in the absence of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was summoned to London to preside as Lord High Steward at the Duke of Norfolk's trial. Mary's demeanour at this distressing period is thus described by her new keeper, her earliest diplomatic foe : " All this last week this Queen did not once look out of her chamber, hearing that the Duke of Norfolk stood upon his arraignment and trial, and being troubled, in all likelihood, with a guilty conscience, and fear to hear such news as she hath now received. And my presence is such a trouble to her, that unless she come out of her chamber, I come but little at her ; but my Lady Shrewsbury is seldom from her ; and for my part I have not, since my ' Labanofij vol. iv. 156 MARY STUART. coming hither, so behaved myself towards her as might justly give occasion to any such misliking of me, though, indeed, I should not rejoice at all of it if she had me in better liking. But though she like not of me, yet I am sure this good Lady Shrewsbury, and all the gentlemen and others of this house, do like well enough of me, which doth well appear by their courteous and gentle entertainment of me and mine. My Lord Shrewsbury hath a costly guest of me, for I and my men, and thirty-six horses, do all lie and feed here at his charge.^ Norfolk was found guilty of high treason, on the evidence extracted by the rack from his unfortunate servants, the admissions of the Bishop of Eoss, and the copies of the ciphered letters from the Queen of Scots, which had been preserved by Higford, and he was sentenced to death. The intelH gence, being forwarded to Sadler by an express, reached Sheffield Castle, January 20th, and was imme- diately communicated by him to th^ Countess of Shrews- bury, that she might declare it to the captive Queen; but as he had announced it previously to some of the gentle- men in the house, it reached Mary first through some of her own people. She was in the first agony of her grief when the Countess, entering, " found her all be-wept and mourning," and with little regard to delicacy, bluntly inquired, " what ailed her?" Mary sorrowfully replied, " that she knew her ladyship could not be ignorant of the cause, and how deeply she must be grieved for the trouble of her friends, who fared the worse for her sake ; adding, that she feared the Duke of Norfolk fared the worse for what she had lately written to Queen Elizabeth ; declaring also, that he was un- justly condemned, for as far as she could testify, he was a true man to the Queen her sister." ^ " Being answered by my lady," continues Sadler, " that she might be sure that whatsoever she had written to the Queen's Majesty could do the Duke neither good nor harm touching his condemnation ; so if his off'ences and treason had not been great, and plainly proved against him, those ^ Sir Ralph Sadler to Lord Burleigh, Sheffield, January 21, 1 571-72— Ellis, second series, vol. ii., p. 329. " Ibid. MARY STUART. 157 noblemen who sat on his trial would not, for all the good on earth, have condemned him/' The Queen therefore, with mourning, then became silent, and had no will to talk more on the subject, and so, like a true lover, she remaineth still mourning for her lover. God/' adds the veteran courtier, " I trust, will put it into the Queen's Majesty's head so to provide for herself, that such true lovers may receive such rewards and fruits of their love as they have very justly deserved at her Majesty's hands/' ^ Elizabeth, for the pre- sent, contented herself with addressing a cruel letter to the sick and broken-hearted captive, taunting her " with impa- tience and ingratitude for the signal benefits she had con- ferred upon her, and referring her for a list of these, together with a catalogue of her offences, to a memorial which the Earl of Shrewsbury was instructed to read to her." ^ \^ Mary listened with lively indignation and surprise to the recital of the offences imputed to her, and the favours of which she was alleged to be the unthankful recipient, and requested Shrewsbury " to give her a copy of the memorial, that she might make a suitable reply in writ- ing ;" Elizabeth, not wishing for an answer, had ordered him by no means to supply her with a copy. ^ Mary then answered it from memory, point by point; and it is to be regretted that her pungent retort on her boastful accuser cannot be inserted at full length. The remarkable fact must, however, be noticed, that Elizabeth declared " that Mary was under signal obligations to her for refusing the Crown of Scotland, when proffered to her acceptance by the subjects of that realm, in token of their respect/' To which Mary replied with a sarcastic apology, " that her thanks were yet unpaid, since it was the first word she had heard of such a circumstance, not being before aware that the practices between her rebellious subjects and the Queen of England had amounted to negotiations like that: if it were so, they had never acknowledged it; and she > Sadler to Burleigh" January 21, 1571-72. 2 Elizabeth to Mary, February 1— Cotton. Lib. Calig. C. iii. f. 14. 3 Reply of the Queen of Scots to Elizabeth's Memorial, February 1 4, 1571-72— Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 17-41. 1 158 MAEY STUART. thought that, when she or her son should tax them with it, they would deny it." She reproaches Elizabeth, " for assist- ing with all her puissance those who, by her own testimony, had been guilty of so great a violation of their duty to their native Sovereign, and that, knowing what manner of men they were, she should have adopted their calumnies." Among the numerous benefits Elizabeth insisted she had conferred on Mary, were her deliverance, when in Lochleven Castle, from an ignominious death ; her hospitable entertainment in the house of a great nobleman and the expenses of her deten- tion in England. Mary replied : " That she praised God who had preserved her from doing anything worthy of such a death. She attributed her miraculous deliverance from the cruel hands of her inhuman rebels to Him *, and after Him her gratitude was due to the King of France, who, by rich gifts, promises, and threats of vengeance, had deterred the Earl of Moray fr9m her slaughter. That Elizabeth's friendly ofiices had been confined to sending Throckmorton to visit her, whose refusal of access had not been resented ; that he had written to her, 'advising her to save her life, by signing whatever was required of her, for it could not prejudice her;' yet the Queen of England had not in the least assisted her in requiring the nullification of the injurious consequences which had resulted to her in consequence of following his counsel." " The alleged obligation for saving her life," she observed, " even if true, must surely be considered cancelled by the agreement the Queen of England had made with the Earl of Moray, a little before his death, to send her back to Scotland, and deliver her into his hands, and after- wards with the Earl of Lennox, to the same effect ; and what further was intended, she left to God and her said good sister. As for her imprisonment, for she could give it no other name, having been with her attendants enclosed for the last five months between four walls, without liberty to stir abroad, or write letters, or receive them from relations, sub- jects, or friends, she could not regard it as a benefit. She did not, indeed, deny that she was, as the Queen of England stated, in the house of a noble lord ; but those who are detained forcibly, even in the palaces of kings, cannot be considered MARY STUART. 159 otherwise than prisoners. The expense caused by her deten- tion, with which the Queen, her good sister, had taunted her, was confined to feeding her and her attendants ; and as these were now reduced to sixteen, she did not think it could merit such great reproach. Everything, but the food, she paid for herself, as long as her servants were allowed to go and lay out her money ; but since such strict restraint had been imposed, she had even suffered the privation of absolute necessaries. Moreover, life was dearly purchased at the price of liberty, the destruction of health, and the ruin of her affairs ; and, at the cost of these, she hopes she shall not be constrained to eat longer of the bread of the Queen of England against her will." In reply to Elizabeth's having enlarged on the obligation performed by her at the baptism of Mary's son, Mary " thanks her good sister for having performed that duty of Christian charity and near relation- ship, but considers it was a mark of friendship and respect, inviting her to unite with the King of France, in doing her that honour, having trusted that it would have proved a general bond of amity. And inasmuch as her good sister had shown herself so much offended with the father [Darnley], who was no less desirous of this honour from the Queen of England than herself, she had thought it might be the means of bringing him into better favour, and would hereafter cause the child to reverence her as a godmother, and to be to her an affectionate kinsman and friend. "Among the tokens of friendship received from the Queen of England, there was one her good sister had forgotten to mention," Mary sarcastically observes — namely, the ring she had been pleased to send, with promise of employing her power to the utmost to succour her in any time of need, if sent to her again, in sign thereof, and adding, " That the Queen of England had since received the ring from the hands of the late Beton, and that on the faith of the assur- ances which accompanied that pledge, she had entered her realm." She adverts to Elizabeth's manifestations of ill- will in sending ships to sea to prevent her return to her own realm after the death of the King her husband, hav- ing first refused to grant her a passport or safe-conduct. 160 MARY STUART. " Some/' continues Marj, " have said that the purpose was to intercept and capture us, while others affirm that the captains were ordered to sink us all to the bottom." After a brief summary of the injuries that had been heaped upon her and her friends, she complains that, " to crown all these, defamatory libels had been written and pub- lished in this realm, full of impostures, falsehoods, and calumnies against the honour and reputation of an afflicted Princess iniquitously detained in prison. The said rebels using language conformable and ^"^ the epithet has been obliterated, probably by the indignant tears of the royal writer. Notwithstanding the vigilance with which Mary and her attendants were watched, and the rigorous nature of their imprisonment, she madly persisted in attempting to carry on her correspondence with her friends and allies, and, as usual, with dangerous results to herself A packet of her letters in cipher was discovered hidden under a stone, in readiness to have been taken away by some secret con- federate without the Castle. Shrewsbury sent them up immediately to Burleigh, who in his letter of 4th March gives the following account of them : " One was from that Queen to the Duke of Alva, wherein she makes plain men- tion of the practices of Ridolphi. Another was to Grange and Lethington, to confirm them to stand fast, and to expect money from the Duke of Alva by the Lord Seton. The third letter is not yet deciphered. The Lord Seton is indeed, by stealth, come through England, landed at Harwich, and so passed into Scotland by the middle March, and is in the Castle of Edinburgh, where he hinders the accord," — mean- ing that he did his best to keep the defenders of the Castle firm to Mary's cause. Information of the most minute description was constantly forwarded to the English authori- ties at Berwick, of all persons leaving Edinburgh who were suspected of being accredited envoys to the royal captive at Sheffield. Burleigh encloses in his letter to Shrewsbury the following passage from one of Hunsdon's letters, charg- ing him to be on the look-out for the person described : — ^ 1 Labanoff. * Lodge, vol. i. p. 534. MARY STUART. 161 " They have also advertised me from the Eegent Mar, of a certain boy that should come lately out of England, with letters to the Castle of Edinburgh, and is to return back within three or four days. I have written to Sir John Forster to lay wait for him within his Wardenry, as I will within mine ; and if your lordship have any occasion to send where the Scottish Queen lieth, it were not amiss that my Lord Shrewsbury had warning of him. His letters are sewed in the buttons and seams of his coat. His coat is of black English frieze ; he has a cut on his left cheek, from his eye down, by the which he may be well known." i It was not very wise to send correspondence of a perilous nature by so remarkable an impj unless the letters were written for the purpose of putting the intercepting powers on a wrong tack, which was occasionally done by Mary and her confederates. Her correspondence with Alva and Philip n. proved, as might have been supposed, very inju- rious to her cause with her royal French kindred. The facts were cleverly pressed on the attention of the King and Queen-mother by Sir Thomas Smith and Walsingham, the English ambassadors at Paris, after the failure of the matri- monial treaty between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. They told M. de Mauvissiere merrily that his mistress, as they called the Queen of Scots, betrayed her affection for the King of Spain, by letters to the Duke of Alva, recently discovered, offering to send the Prince, her son, to Spain, to be brought up there. " Yea/' observed Mauvissiere, " let- ters counterfeited and made on purpose to hurt that poor Queen." " No," said they, " the original letters have been shown to M. de Croc and M. de la Mothe, by whom the King of France wrote to require her liberation, and that she might be sent over here. What would she do in liberty, if, being so strictly kept, she hath entered into such prac- tices, for a perpetual broil between England, France, and Scotland ? " ^ By these representations, according to their account, the King (Charles IX.) was worked up to exclairii : ' Lodge, vol. i. p. 535. 2 Sir Dudley Digges, p. 194, dated March 1571-72. VOL. VII. L 162 MARY STUAET. " Ah, tlie poor fool ! she will never cease till she loses her head ! In faith, they will put her to death. I see it is her own fault and folly. I see no remedy for it." If we are to believe this statement, the first mention of the barbarous and unprecedented outrage against the law of nations, of bring- ing a fugitive Sovereign to the block, who had sought refuge in the realm of a sister Queen, her nearest relation, in a time of peace, encouraged to do so by her promises of assistance, originated with her brother-in-law, Charles IX. But this, the point to which her ministers desired to bring Elizabeth, appears inconsistent with the affectionate interest he had manifested in her behalf, a few days before, in a conversation which is thus reported by Walsingham :^ "I must have my request for her put into the treaty," said he ; " make what answer you will, she is my kins- woman and my sister-in-law, and she was my Sovereign." Walsingham replied, " that they had no authority to treat of any such matter touching the Queen of Scots. She was your Sovereign," said he ; " thanks be to God, she is not now," at which the young monarch laughed. " Fire and water cannot be together," said KiHigrew; " the one is contrary to the other ; the league is made for a perpetual and straight amity betwixt you and the Queen of England, and you would treat for the Queen's most mortal and danger- ous enemy. This cannot stand together; you must take her now for dead, and you cannot tell whether she be dead or alive. Why then should you require her to be put into the league ?" " If it be so/' replied the King, " what remedy ? then there can no more suit be made for her." This mean submission to the law of expediency and acqui- escence in the impossibility of rendering effectual succour to his unfortunate sister-in-law, was consistent with the indo- lent selfishness of a weak-minded Prince ; but that he coolly predicted, as if it were a matter of course, the unprece- dented doom Elizabeth's ministers were preparing for her, is incredible. It was, however, an easy thing for Burleigh's colleague to make such a report of his sayings in a strictly ^ Letter of Smith and Walsingham to Queen Elizabeth, March 1, 1571, Complete Ambassador. MAEY STUART. 163 private letter as miglit have the effect of familiarising their Sovereign to the policy they wished her to adopt. Elizabeth was daily assailed by thera with representations of the dangers to which herself and the reformed Church were exposed from Mary's partisans both at home and abroad; exhorted in the words of Knox, "to apply the axe to the root of the evil;" and assured "that, till the Scottish Queen was dead, neither her Crown nor her life could be in security." Credit is due to her for the firmness with which she resisted these subtle temptations. " Can 1," she exclaimed, with a burst of generous feeling, " put to death the bird that, to escape the pursuit of the hawk, has fled to my feet for protection ? Honour and conscience forbid !" ^ Her reluctance to shed the blood of Norfolk was testified by the fact of her repeated revocations of his death-warrant. In order to put an end to her mental struggles, Burleigh, who had gone too far to recede, summoned a Parliament, and carefully prepared the minds of an unreflecting majority, by the circulation of the translation which he had himself assisted Wilson in making, of Buchanan's slanderous libel against Mary, together with copies of the supposititious letters and other papers tending to her defamation, and endeavouring to prove from Scripture that it was a lawful and godly deed to send her to the scaf- fold. Worked up by these stimulants to the proper climax of political and religious antagonism, the Commons presented a petition to the Queen, containing three requests: First, that she would put the Queen of Scots to death ;^ secondly, that it should be accounted matter of treason in any person to advocate her title to the Crown of England ; thirdly, to order the sentence that had been passed on the Duke of Norfolk to be carried into execution. Elizabeth refused the first and second requests, but, overborne by her minis- ters, acceded to the third. Norfolk was beheaded on the 2d of June. W^hen Shrewsbury announced the tragic tid- ings to Mary, she was overwhelmed with grief. The recital of the determined proceedings in Parliament against herself, Elizabeth's gracious intervention for the preservation of her, made little impression; but she declared " that the Duke of 1 Lingard, vol. vi. p. 272. ^ Ibid., p. 273. 164 MAEY STUART. Norfolk had sealed with his blood the testimony of her innocence/' ^ c " I was only beginning to support myself, after hav- ing done all I could by medicine and baths to allay the continual torment in my side," writes she to La Mothe Fenelon ; " but the pain caused by his death so touches my heart as to surmount every other." " Again," she writes to the same sympathising friend at this distressing epoch, " I am resolved to die, and have grace and mercy from God alone, who, of His goodness, made me a Sovereign Princess. I am resolved to have none of her pardons ! She may take away my life, but not the con- stancy which Heaven has granted and fortified within me. I will die Queen of Scotland. Posterity will judge on whom the blame will fall/' After this burst of royal spirit, she - mentions the weakness of the suffering flesh : " My head is so full of rheum, and my eyes so swollen with such contin- ual sickness and fever, that I am obliged to keep entirely in ray bed, where I have but little rest, and am in bed, un- able, now, to write with my hand. Lord Shrewsbury read , me part of the libel which those of the pretended clergy presented against me. It is full of blood." Elizabeth's . bishops, in compliance with the desire of Burleigh, had ' petitioned their Sovereign to put Mary to death, but could not prevail. A fortnight after the axe had fallen on her affianced lover, Mary was roused from the indulgence of the all- absorbing grief into which that event had plunged her, by the arrival of Lord Delawar, Sir E-alph Sadler, the Attor- ■ ney-General Bromley, and her malignant libeller Dr Thomas Wilson, Master of the Kolls, at Sheffield Castle, with commission to accuse her of having committed various ' offences against their Sovereign lady and the laws of England, The royal captive received them in her sick- chamber, unsupported by any of her Council ; and having read the letter addressed to her by Elizabeth, as their cre- dential, addressed them in these words: " We protest, ^ Camden — Memorials of the Howard Family, by the late Henry Howard, Esq. of Corby. MAKY STUART. 165 as Queen of Scotland, a free and sovereign Princess, that we will not submit us to the jurisdiction of the Queen of England nor any other, nor yet recognise any deputies sent towards us by our said good sister, otherwise than as one free Prince is accustomed to do to another ; but inas- much as we have the honour to be nearest to her in blood and right of succession after her to this Crown — and as we have always desired, and do still, to satisfy her, as far as we can without prejudice to our estate, conscience, and honour, we are willing to hear and answer." The deputies made recital to her of the articles with which they were instructed to charge her, commencing with the oft-discussed offence of " her assuming the arms and title of Queen of England — -of treating of a marriage with Norfolk without acquainting the Queen Elizabeth, and practising with her ministers for his deliverance out of the Tower. Raising a rebellion in the North — relieving notorious rebels in Scotland and Flanders — seeking foreign aid from the Pope, the Spaniard, and others, by Ridolphi, in order to invade England — conspiring with English subjects to free her out of prison, and declare her Queen of England — that she had received letters from the Pope, wherein he had promised to cherish her as a hen doth her chickens — and that she had procured the Pope's Bull deposing the Queen, and permitted her friends in foreign parts to style her Queen of England." To these formidable articles Mary answered, with a calm and settled counte- nance : "In regard to the assumption of the arms and title, she acknowledged such claim and pretence was made for her by the French King, her father-in-law, during the life of her late husband the King of France ; but in respect to the couverture of her marriage and minority at the time, without any evil intention on her part, she thought ought not to be imputed to her — that she had discontinued it after her husband's death, and had always been ready and willing to renounce all claim to the Crown of England during the life of Queen Elizabeth and her children. Her treaty of marriage with the Duke of Norfolk was not intended to the prejudice of the Queen i 166 MAEY STUART. t of England, though she could not deny persevering in it, having given her faith to him, which bond of conscience she could not withdraw ; and as for moving him to escape, seeing his danger, for the good-will she bore unto him, she desired him to be at liberty and out of danger. That she i knew nothing of the rebellion in the North but what her ser- vants gave her to understand, from common report, neither was she the procurer of it. Moreover, she had offered j before that rebellion, by her letters to the Queen of England, ; to communicate all she knew of any matters that might j touch her Majesty, if she might be permitted to come into i her presence, and protested that if harm happened she j ought not to bear the blame. She confessed that she had ; written to the Kings of Spain and of France, the Pope, and others, for her restoration to liberty and her country, as she j had often warned the Queen of England she would do. That j she knew Ridolphi was in trust with the Pope, and being ! in want of money, she was a suitor through him to obtain > some from the Pope, from whom she had received many ; comfortable letters." She denied procuring the Bull against the Queen of England, and declared " that when a j copy of it was brought to her, she ordered it to be burned." | She freely acknowledged " listening to various projects j for the recovery of her liberty, as was most natural, though : she denied having originated any of the plans for that I purpose. She knew nothing," she said, " of the proceed- . ings of her friends and well-wishers, beyond seas, in styling i her ' the rightful Queen of England,' but sure she was it ; had never been done by her procurement." She concluded , by reiterating her request to be heard, in answer to the | charges against her, " by the assembled Parliament of Eng- j land, in the presence of the Queen her good sister." ^ ' The Commissioners took notes in writing of Mary's \ replies, which were delivered verbally and at much greater length. She remonstrated "that they had rendered her sen- tences imperfect, and obscured the sense and full meaning she desired to convey, by the manner in which they had i made their abstract of her answers;" they replied, " they ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 199-202. ■i MARY STUART. 167 were acting according to their instructions, by which they were bound/' " Then," observed she, " there is the greater reason that I should be heard by your Queen herself, and her Estates assembled in Parliament/' ^ Mary's appeal to the justice of the English Parliament was a bold step, since a bill for her attainder had been proposed in both Houses, as well as a bill declaring her and her posterity incapable of the succession to the Crown. Elizabeth, to her honour be it spoken, defeated both these strong measures against the captive heiress-pre- sumptive of the realm, by abruptly proroguing the Parlia- ment, to the bitter disappointment of Burleigh.'^ It is asserted that Leicester's influence with his royal mistress was successfully exerted on these occasions in Mary's behalf. If so, it proceeded from his renewed hopes, as Hatton had superseded him in Elizabeth's favour, and she was listening to a matrimonial suit from the Duke of Alen^on, of winning the fair heiress - presumptive of the Britannic Empire for his wife, now Norfolk was in the grave. Mary mentions repeatedly the persevering suit of Leicester for her hand ; but of this hereafter. In the melancholy summer of 1572, Shrewsbury writes to Burleigh describing Mary's tantalising interview with a French officer, whom La Mothe Fendlon had obtained leave from Elizabeth to send to her with a small instalment of her dower rent. " Marshal Jos came hither on Wednesday last by her Majesty's commission, signed with your hand, who brought from the Ambassador the sum of £150, which I deli- vered unto this Queen. His speech unto her was but short, altogether in my hearing, and containing no matter of impor- tance as far as I could gather ; neither did he deliver any letters, tokens, or privy message unto her or any belonging unto her, for I used straight order to keep him from com- pany or speech with any of them. She has now sent let- ters by him unto the Queen's Majesty, and also to the ambas- sador, which letters I thought meet to enclose in a packet directed under my seal unto your lordship." ^ ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 5fi. * Lingard. ^ Shrewsbury to Burleigh, Sheffield Castle, Aug. 2, 1572— Lodge, vol. i. 168 MAEY STUART. About this time Lesley, Bishop of Ross, was transferred from the Tower of London to Farnham Castle, in Surrey, where he was consigned to the keeping of the Bishop of Winchester as a prisoner of state. Although his confine- ment was very strict, he regarded it as a most blessed change, and declares he was very honourably used by that prelate, notwithstanding the difference of their creeds. He obtained permission to send a letter to his captive Sovereign, acquainting her with his release from the Tower, and also sent her a book of devout meditations, in Latin, written by him during his incarceration there. Mary wrote in reply, from Sheffield Castle, thanking him for his book, which she assured him had afforded great consolation to her afilicted raind.^ Suspicions being entertained of enterprises for Mary's escape, Shrewsbury wrote to Leicester that he had post- poned his intention of removing her to the Lodge, " now finding the place where she is,'' he says, " safer than I looked for ; and considering if any practices shall be used, betwixt this and Hallowtide is the fittest time to put it in use ; therefore I mind not to remove her at all, unless it be for five or six days, to cleanse her chamber. She is desirous of new men and to send these abroad, -which, if by the Ambassador's means it be obtained at the Queen's Majesty's hands, will bring new devices."^ The sorrow into which the tragic fate of her affianced lover, the Duke of Norfolk, had plunged Queen Mary, was doomed to a bitter aggravation. The distressing tidings were announced to her that the Earl of Northumberland had been sold by Morton to the English Government, and beheaded for high treason, without a trial, at York.^ The blow her cause susttiined in consequence of the death, exile, and ruin of the great English nobles by whom it had been supported, was severe ; but her worst misfortune was the implication of her kinsmen of the house of Guise in the atrocious massacre of St Bartholomew, which occurred at ' Lesley's Negotiations. 2 Lodge. ' More than one English poem, bitterly reflecting on the Scotch for the sale of the Earl of Northumberland, was written and circulated in both realms. MARY STUART. 169 Paris, August 24th, two days after the execution of the Earl of Northumberland at York. Though the inciter of that crime was her atheistical and ever-inimical mother- in-law, Catherine de Medicis, who had hitherto rejoiced in the popular title of " the Protestant Queen," the forlorn and powerless captive, Mary Stuart, confined, as she was, within the four walls of her English prison-chamber, was doomed most unjustly to suffer in consequence a terrible revulsion of public opinion, which had previously been in her favour. The fulminations of John Knox against the Guisian blood were no longer attributed to bigotry or the blindness of polemic and political prejudice, but invested with the dignity of prophetic wisdom, Protestants natu- rally took the alarm at the prospect of a Princess connected with that house, and professing the same faith, succeeding to the English throne. The fires of Smithfield were in fancy rekindled — the name of Mary was considered ominous — a fever of loyalty to Elizabeth was attended with feelings of antagonism to her Poman Catholic rival, on whom the re- proach of the slaughter of the Huguenot martyrs of Paris was now most unjustly charged, in addition to the black list of personal crimes imputed to her by the usurpers of her realm. It was moreover desired that the penalty of those crimes should be visited on her. Burleigh took occasion to exhort his Sovereign to provide for her own security, and that of her realm, by removing her dangerous rival ; and the Bishop of London proposed in plain words " forth- with to cut off the Scottish Queen's head."^ The opportunity was indeed favourable, hut Elizabeth shrank from the responsibility of shedding that kindred royal blood on a scaffold. She desired to be ridded of her fair and unfortunate rival, but by means that would shift the odium of the deed on her ready tools, the rebel lords of Scotland. Burleigh's nephew, Killigrew, was the envoy selected for renewing with the Regent Mar the treaty for sending Mary back to Scotland, to be put to death there, after the mockery of a judicial process — a treaty which had been successively agreed to by the Earls of Moray and Lennox, » Ellis, 2d Series, iii. 25. 170 MARY STUART. and rendered abortive by their untimely and violent deaths. Killigrew's ostensible errand was to endeavour to compose the differences between the Earl of Huntley and other maintainers of the Queen's party, and the Regent Mar and Morton, to call the attention of the Protestant lords to the late outrage of the Roman Catholic party in France, and to assure the Regent and his supporters that the Queen of England would defend them in all time of danger. But in an interview with the Queen Elizabeth herself, to which none were admitted but his uncle Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester, the great object of his mission was unfolded, and Elizabeth " bade him remember that none but those present were privy to the great and delicate charge that had been laid upon him ; that her name must not appear in the trans- action ; and that if it ever came forth or was known he must answer for it."'^ The assertions of an historian are some- times doubted, and frequently cavilled at, when opposed to the vulgar errors of prejudice; therefore it is desirable to place before the reader the following passage from the secret instructions delivered to Killigrew on this occasion, and which still exist in Burleigh's own hand : — ^ " It is found dailv more and more, that the continuance of the Queen of Scots here is so dangerous, both for the per- son of the Queen's Majesty and for her state and realm, as nothing presently is more necessary than that the realm might be delivered of her ; and though by justice this might be done in this realm, yet for certain respects it seemeth better that she be sent into Scotland, to be delivered to the Regent and his party, so as it may be by some good means wrought that they themselves would secretly require it, and that good assurance may be given that, as they have here- tofore many times, specially in the time of the Queen's former Regents, offered, so they would without fail proceed with her by way of justice, so as neither that realm nor this should be dangered by her hereafter ; for otherwise to have her and to keep her were of all others most dangerous." ^ And here, for the sake of perspicuity, and the clearer in- 1 State Paper Office MS., Sept. 1572— Tytler's Hist, of Scotland, vol. vii. 2 Murdin. * Burleigh's State Papers, in Murdin, pp. 224, 225. MAHY STUART, 171 formation of readers not versed in the purposely-mystified history of the period, it is necessary to explain that the per- sons described by the English premier as " the Queen's former Eegents/' were the Earls of Moray and Lennox, and that the Queen, whom these patriot Scots had succes- sively served in that capacity, was the Sovereign of Eng- land, with whom they had confederated for the deposition of their own, and privily entered into a base covenant to consummate their treasons by a cold-blooded act of regi- cide, as the tools and executioners of their foreign ruler s policy. Such were the men on whose accusations Mary Stuart has been defamed — the pensioners and secret-service men of her rival kinswoman — the patrons, suborners, and paymasters of her libeller Buchanan. Killigrew was advised not to suggest the project for Mary's murder by her own subjects to the Begent Mar per- sonally, in the first instance, but through some member or members of the confederacy, who might appear most apt for the purpose. " Then," proceeds the instructions, " you may give the said party some likelihood to think that, if there were any earnest means secretly made by the Eegent and the Earl of Morton, to some of the Lords of the Council here, to have her delivered to them, it might be at this time better than any time heretofore brought to pass, that they might have her, so as there might be good surety given that she should receive that she hath deserved by order of justice, whereby no further peril should ensue by her escap- ing, or by setting her up again.'' ^ Hostages were, in fact, to be given that Mary should be brought to trial and exe- cuted within four hours after her consignment by the English authorities to the rebel lords within her own realm.^ " We have sent Killigrew this day to Scotland," writes Burleigh to Shrewsbury on the 7th of September, ominously adding in reference to Mary, " All men now cry out of your prisoner. The will of God be done." ^ But the will of the all-just and merciful Controller of the 1 Burleigh's State Papers, in Murdin, pp. 224, 225. - Letters from Killigrew to Burleigh and Leicester. Cotton. Lib. Calig. C. iii. f. 375. ^ Lodge, i. 548. 172 MARY STUART. designs of wicked men was not that the forlorn captive should perish bv this nefarious confederacy for her destruc- tion. Her probation was not finished, for she had yet to be perfected, through a lengthened term of earthly sufferings, for a brighter inheritance than the thorny diadem of Scotland. She had been twice preserved within the last two years from the cruel hands that sought her unprotected life, by the awfully sudden summons, first of her ungrateful brother Moray, and secondly of her guilty father-in-law Lennox, to give account for their deeds at a higher tribunal than that which they were successively preparing to erect in order to pronounce a lawless doom on her. The murderous treaty for her blood was renewed between the ministers of the English Sovereign and the confederate traitors, who had usurped the government of Scotland for the third time, but unavailingly, though everything appeared consenting to its accomplishment. Morton was the governing power who had ruled each succeeding Regent, and he assured Killigrew, " that if Mar hesitated to go the lengths required, it should be executed without him."' All the military power and all the ready money in Scotland were in his hands ; yet he " expected that the Queen of England must be liberal and effective in her sup- port." Killigrew replied, "that if indeed the Earl of Morton could give some good security for the performance of the great matter" for so the destruction of Mary was mysteriously termed in their negotiation, " then he might safely reckon on the Queen of England for the satisfaction of all his wishes." Morton was at that time sick nearly unto death, but the un- hallowed conferences for the murder of her who had twice given him his forfeit - life and restored his confiscated estates, were held by his bedside at Dalkeith. It was there that Killigrew, on the 9th of October, met and discussed the business with the Eegent Mar, who, to his eternal infamy, agreed with Morton in declaring, " that it would be the best and only way to end all troubles in both realms." ^ Desirous, however, of reaping some pecuniary benefit in reward for undertaking the ofiice of hangmen for Queen ' Tytler's Hist, of Scotland, vol. vii. pp. 314-317. MARY STUART. 173 Elizabeth, they coolly proposed that her Majesty should pay the same sum to them she was accustomed to expend annually in the keeping of their unfortunate Sovereign in England. In reply to this suggestion, Killigrew drily observed, " that if they did not think the business profit- able to them, he would not move his pen farther towards its accomplishment." Then Morton, raising himself in his bed, declared, " that both my Lord Regent and he did desire it as a sovereign salve for all their sores, but it could not be done without some manner of ceremony, and a kind of process whereunto the noblemen must be called after a secret manner, and the clergy likewise. Also, that it would be requisite for her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] to send such a convoy with the party meaning the royal victim, whose immolation they were thus contriving, " that, in case there were people" — well did the subtle traitor know the real feelings of the true hearts of Scotland to- wards their injured Queen — " that would not like it, they," her intended murderers, " might be able to keep the field." He further added, " that if they could bring the nobility [alluding to those of the usurping faction] to consent, as he hoped they would, they would not keep the prisoner alive three hours after entering within the bounds of Scot- land." 2 Killigrew, desirous of clinching the business on the spot, inquired whether they would have him write to that effect. Mar faltered, and required time for consider- ation. He had been a churchman, and Mary's tutor, and from the time when the fair royal child was brought for refuge to his priory at Inchmahome, they had never been separated till her marriage with the Dauphin. For he had accompanied her to France, been her personal instructor, and seen her grow up from infancy to early womanhood in en- dearing domestication with himself. Dearly had she loved him, gratefully had she repaid his attention, fatally had she trusted him, though the brother of her father's mistress and the uncle of her aspiring brother Moray. Perhaps of all the traitors who betrayed their orphan Queen for English gold, calumniated and plotted against her life, Mar was the most » Ty tier's Hist, of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 314-317. » Ibid. 174 MARY STUART. inexcusable. He hesitated, it is true, when required to commit himself, by authorising Killlgrew to make the pre- liminary request to the English Queen for his royal pupil and Sovereign to be sent back to Scotland as a sheep to the slaughter, for, as Regent, the butcher's part and its respon- sibility must fall on him. His demurs proceeded not from tenderness of heart or conscience, but from caution. Killi- grew records that he found him indeed more cold than Morton, yet seemed glad and desirous to have it come to pass." ^ Some of the confederates were of opinion that it could not safely be done without the meeting of a Parlia- ment, but Killigrew would not listen to a proposal that gave the predestined victim the ^hance of an appeal to the sense of even the factious portion of the Estates of her realm. The process by which her death was to be accom- plished required to be secret and sure, and the result cer- tain. " The Regent," writes Killigrew, " hath after a sort moved this matter to nine of the best of their party, to wit, that it were fit to make a humble request to the Queen's Majesty to have hither the cause of all their troubles, and to do, etc."^ That convenient abbreviation, or, as Tytler in his pithy comment on KilUgrew's letter terms it, " the emphatic ' to do, et ceterse,' " comprehended the climax of the tragedy, by serving, as a cipher, to intimate the black deed which the English negotiator for Mary Stuart's murder shrank from naming in plain words, even to uncle Burleigh its originator. He proceeds, however, to certify the consent of the nine worthies whom the Regent had sounded, and that both the said Regent and Morton would exert their utmost dexterity in the furtherance thereof. " I am also told," continues Killigrew, " that the hostages have been talked of, and that they shall be de- livered to our men upon the fields, and the matter de- spatched within four hours, so as they, the hostages, shall not need to remain long in our hands." ^ So finely had the 1 Tytler's Hist, of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 314-317. « Ibid. ' Robertson and some other writers have erroneously given the Eegent Mar credit for rejecting with horror the iniquitous proposal ; but Tytler's MARY STUART. 175 ^uJndara priest, Mar, played his game, that Killigrew actu- ally suspected him of being deficient in diplomatic craft. " I perceive," observes he, " that the Eegent's first coldness grew rather for want of skill to compass so great a matter, than for lack of goodwill to execute the same/' Being in possession of the person of the little King, now six years old, Mar had the prospect of governing Scotland nearly twelve years, unless Mary were either restored by the Estates of her own realm, or called to the throne of England by a revolution or the death of Eliza- beth, a contingency that might happen any day, and which those in both realms, who had outraged her beyond the possibility of pardon, considered it necessary to prevent. Mar, not contented with the probable stability her death would secure to his regency for her son, intended to be well paid for becoming the executioner of the Queen of England's malice and selfish policy. Morton had received ten thou- sand pounds in gold for merely delivering up the Earl of Northumberland to the Captain of Berwick ; but this was a deed attended with far greater responsibility than the betrayal of a fugitive English rebel, a crime of darker dye ; it was woman-slaughter, cruel, illegal, and unprecedented in its manner — regicide, withal, in its basest and most aggra- vated form, at the subornation and under the military sup- port of a foreign Sovereign — a regicide more likely to provoke the terrible justice of popular vengeance, than the murder of any previous Scottish monarch, from " the gra- cious Duncan" down to James I. The god of this world. Mammon, had blinded the Regent Mar to the danger as well as the turpitude of the project for Mary's slaughter. He was earnest to have some portion of the wages of his ini- quity in advance, under the plea of " money to pay his soldiers." Killigrew, though an experienced traflScker with the secret-service-men of England, was startled at the mag- nitude of the demands in the ultimatum delivered to him in research has brought to light the documentary evidences of this long- hidden work of darkness, proving from Killigrew's letters, mystified though they be, that the 'only demur on the part of the Regent arose from the desire of making the most profit he could of the blood of his royal pupil and injured Sovereign. J 176 MARY STUART. Edinburgh, on the 26th of October, by the Abbot of Dun- fermline. He objected to them as unreasonable, but for- warded the paper to Burleigh for his consideration. Before it was received in London, the murderous league was broken by the sudden death of the Eegent, who was attacked with a violent and mysterious illness on the road to Stirling, after dining with Morton at Dalkeith. The doom of Mary Stuart had been, humanly speaking, sealed at that conference ; but history is a continuous record of the fallacy of human calcu- lations. Mar expired at Stirling on the 28th of October ; his brother in iniquity, and political rival, Morton, who suc- ceeded him in the regency, was suspected of having poisoned him during his late visit at Dalkeith. The event might, with equal or perhaps greater probability, have been attri- buted to the suffusion of an over-excited brain struggling with the pangs of awakened conscience and horror of the deed to which he had pledged himself. But from whatever cause it resulted, his death rendered the treaty abortive, and rescued the captive Queen from a peril of which, immi- nent as it was, she does not appear to have been in the slightest degree aware. There was an attempt to renew the negotiations for the same object with Morton ; but though he amused Killi- grew for several weeks with his artful diplomacy, he was too well aware of the real estimation in which Mary was held by her people to consent to her being brought back to her own realm for slaughter. " Morton," to use the quaint but shrewd expression of his contemporary biographer, Hume of Godscroft, " was too old a cat to draw such a straw as that after him." "Well did he know her death would not be tamely borne by patriotic descendants of men who had won their freedom, under the banner of her illustrious ancestor, at Bannockburn. Though thrice ten thousand English spears were to cross the frontier to deliver her up to himself and his confederate traitors, yet would the gallant Scotts of Buccleuch, the Kers of Ferny- hirst, the Aytouns, Maxwells, and every other loyal Border clan, rush to the rescue of their lovely and beloved Queen, and save or perish with her. Besides, hi| own share in M^EY STUART. 177 Darnley's murder was too notorious for him to venture to provoke public inquiry, by proceeding against her on that accusation. It was an experiment too dangerous to be hazarded. No ! let the Queen of England keep or kill her hated kinswoman herself. • Burleigh, bitterly disappointed at the failure of the nego- tiation, wrote to his confederate Leicester : " I now see the Queen's Majesty hath no surety, but in doing as she hath been counselled, for this way that was meant for dealing with Scotland is, you may see, neither now possible, nor was by their articles made reasonable."! The righteous rhetoric that follows, though addressed to Leicester, was palpably intended for the eye of Elizabeth, in order to persuade her that the murder of her unfortunate cousin would be an act of duty to herself, her people, and her God, whom Burleigh impiously assumes had driven the royal fugitive into her toils for that purpose. " If her Majesty," pursues he, " will con- tinue her delays for providing for her own safety by just means, given to her by God, she, and we all, shall vainly call upon God when the calamity shall fall upon us. God send her Majesty strength of spirit to preserve God's cause, her own life, and the lives of millions of her good subjects, all most manifestly in danger, and that only by her delays, and so consequently she shall be the cause of a noble crown and realm which shall be a prey to all that can invade it. God be merciful to us ! " The instructions . which the godly writer addressed to the Earl of Shrewsbury a few weeks before, with regard to the victim of his astute policy, are worthy of attention : — " Her Majesty [Elizabeth] willed me to let your lordship understand that she would have you use some speech to the Queen of Scots, in this sort, that it is now fully discovered to her Majesty what practices that Queen has had in hand, both with the Duke of Norfolk and sending away of Ridolphi into Spain. And though it is known to her Majesty, by writings extant, how she was in deliberation what was best for her [Mary] to do for her escape out of this realm, and thereof caused the Duke of Norfolk to be conferred withal, and that she made choice rather to go to Spain than into Scotland or France. Yet her Majesty thinks it no just 1 Burleigh to Leicester, Nov. 2, 1572.— Cotton. MS. Caligula, C. iii. f. 386. VOL. VII. M / 178 MARY STUAET. cause to be offended with those devices tending to her liberty. Neither is she [Elizabeth] offended with her purposes to offer her son in marriage with the King of Spain's daughter, in which matter the late Queen of Spain had solicited her. Neither that she sought to make the King of Spain believe that she would give ear to the offer of Don John of Austria, But the very matter of offence is, that her Majesty understands certainly her labours and devices to stir up a new rebellion in this realm, with the King of Spain to assist it ; and finding the said Queen [Mary] now so bent, she must not think but that her Majesty hath cause to alter her courteous dealings with her. And so in this sort her Majesty would have you tempt her patience to provoke her to answer somewhat,^' ^ On the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, Shrewsbury had been gratified with the office of Earl Marshal, which had been hereditary in the family of that unfortunate nobleman from the days of Edward I., from whose son, Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, it was inherited. This preferment, a manifest wrong to Norfolk's eldest son, did not tend to improve Mary's regard for her keeper ; but, though a stern and uncompromising jailer, Shrewsbury did not condescend to perform the serpentine part required of him by the all-powerful ruler of the councils of Queen Elizabeth. Suspicions had just before been infused into Elizabeth's jealous mind against Shrewsbury, by the re- port of his having allowed his friends access to the prison-chamber of his royal charge, as we find from the context of Burleigh's letter. " H'er Majesty told me a while ago that a gentleman of my Lord of (I dare not name the party) coming to your lordship's house, was by your lordship asked, ' Whether he had seen the Queen of Scots or no?' and he said, 'No.' 'Then,' quoth your lordship, ' you shall see her anon.' Which off'er her Majesty [Elizabeth] mislikes, and I said that ' I durst say it was not ^ Lodge's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 543. The editor of the Talbot Papers, observes with honest indignation : " We have here the prime minister of a great and wise Sovereign directing, by her order, one of the first noble- men of the realm to visit the cell of a prisoner, and to exercise the ofBce of a spy of the inquisition, by artfully drawing proofs of her guilt from her own mouth. Tlie terms in which this treacherous mandate is couched aggravate the idea of its turpitude. The Earl, deep in the secrets of her story already, master of all the known evidence against her, is ordered, not only to sift her by artful questions, but to assail her passions, and to work upon the weakness of a feminine temper, which had been rendered infin- itely irritable by a long series of misfortunes ; in a word, to tempt her patience to answer somewhat." What a frightful addition is this to the horrors of Mary's prison ! MARY STUART. 179 true in that matter.' 1 perceive that her Majesty would have that Queen kept very straitly from all conference, insomuch it is more likely that she shall be rather committed to ward [close prison] than have more liberty."^ Shrewsbury's reply to Burleigh's letter, though couched in the pitiless language he knew was expected of any one to whom the jailership of the hapless heiress of the realm was committed, is rather calculated to move compassion than to aggravate the painful restraint in which she was doomed to pine away the meridian of her days. Truly she had evil enough, it may be seen, without that. " This Queen," writes he, " remains still within these four walls in sure keeping, and these persons continue very quiet, thanked be God. She is much offended at my restraint from walking without the Castle ; but for all her anger I will not suffer her to pass one of these gates until I have contrary command- ment expressly from her Majesty ; and though I was fully persuaded that my number of soldiers was sufficient for her safe keeping, yet have I thought good to increase the same with thirty soldiers, more for the terror of the evil disposed ; and I have also given and do keep, precise order, not only that no manner of conference shall be had with her, or any of hers, but also that no intelligence shall be brought to her, or any of hers." ^ He makes the following report, on the 2d of December, of the sad and passionate frame of the sternly guarded captive's mind : " This Queen, as may appear, is so discontented, that she, having sundry times written unto the Queen's Majesty, is neither answered nor suffered to receive out of France her money or other things needful for her use, as she cannot with good patience be contented to write to her Majesty at this time. She is, within a few days, become more melan- choly than of long before, and complains of her wrongs and imprisonment, and for remedy thereof seems not to trust her Majesty, but altogether in foreign princes. By her talk she would make appear as both Spain and France sought her and her son, and to keep them both friends alike. She would cunningly persuade that Spain in Ireland, and • Lodge, vol. i. p. 543. 2 ibid. p. 550. 180 MARY STUART. France in Scotland, intend some attempts." Shrewsbury inferred from Mary's sudden disposition to talk on these subjects, that some political project of hers had been de- feated. " For sure I am," continues he, " her melancholy and grief are greater than in words she utters." i Mary's feminine imprudence of speech would have been far more reprehensible than it was, had she been aware that her uncle. Cardinal de Lorraine, was at that very time endeavouring to work out a plan for her deliverance and restoration to her throne, by representing to the Court of France the expediency of diverting Elizabeth from her systematic agitations in France by rendering Mary Stuart a political instrument for troubling the tranquillity of Eng- land. A secret council was held on the 24th of January 1572, by the Queen-mother, at which no one was present but the Cardinal of Lorraine and two others, one of whom must have betrayed all that passed to Walsingham ; ^ for he apprises Burleigh " that a resolution was taken to grant the bold Rochellers and their fellow-reformers free liberty of worship, and all reasonable demands, in order to restore peace to Fi-ance and release a thousand veteran troops under the command of the Marquis de Maine, who was then, apparently as an enterprise of his own, in aid of his kins- woman the Queen of Scots, to land on the coast of Scotland, effect a junction with her partisans, march to Edinburgh, and relieve the Castle, which Lethington and Grange pro- posed to surrender to any subject of the King of France who should be duly authorised to receive it in Queen Mary's name." It was also intended that the Duke of Guise should effect a landing in England, where Mary's friends were still numerous, and ready, as soon as provided with arms, to rise and attempt her liberation from prison.^ But the accord with Rochelle was neither so soon nor so easily effected as was anticipated ; and Walsingham's representa- tions induced Elizabeth to take very active measures for the support of Morton and his government. ^ Lodge, vol. i. p. 550. * Inedited Privy Council Letter-Book of Queen Elizabeth, in possession of Dr O'Callaghan, folio, pp. 439, 440. 8 j^j^^ MARY STUART. 181 Meanwhile Shrewsbury, not to be idle, acquainted Burleigh with the wicked practices of three learned scholars, named Palmer, Falconer, and Skinner, who had the reputation of being conjurors, and were aUIed with certain mass priests and others in a plot for delivering the captive Scottish Queen out of his hands. ^ The scholars, whom he calls *' dangerous vagabonds," had eluded his attempts for their apprehension, though he had caused diligent search to be made through Derbyshire, Stafford- shire, and a part of Shropshire ; but he had succeeded in catching two of the priests, and two gentlemen their con- federates, named John Revell and Thomas Comberford. Eevell was to have introduced himself into the Earl of Shrewsbury's service, by means of certain magical plates of gold with which the scholars had furnished him and per- suaded him they were talismans, to procure the Earl's favour, and insure his safety. It is to be feared they did not pre- serve him from the rack, for he was delivered over to Bur- leigh, together with the priests and the enchanted plates of gold ; the latter were to be shown to Queen Elizabeth if she desired it. Matters of a less marvellous nature are communi- cated in the same letter, which, being personal to Mary, shall be recounted in his own words. " I have received the box and the books sent unto this Queen, with the letters from the French Ambassador, conveyed all hither by Mr Randolph, which I have delivered unto her according to your letters, that came therewith, perceiving that in the box was con- tained a pair of beads of stone, a little book covered with black velvet, a cross of gold, and a letter from the Duchess of Guise. She said ' the box was opened, and that she wanted another book which she writ for.' But I did earnestly affirm to her, 'that neither was the box opened, nor anything lacking by means of your lordship.' Then she showed herself much grieved 'that anything should come unto Mr Randolph's hands that should be sent unto her.' The cause whereof (as I verily take it) is, that she would have some express messenger to come, whereby she ^ Shrewsbury to Burleigh — Wright's Elizabeth, January 20, 1 572. 182 MAEY STUAET. might get some intelligence according to her humour. She hath presently written unto the Queen's Majesty, which I do send with her pacquet unto your lordship among other her letters, to be used as shall please her Majesty/' ^ That Mary had just reason for suspecting her parcels were opened, we have sufficient evidence in the following ^ communication from Walsingham to Burleigh, dated Paris, February 21st, which is a case in point: "I have of late granted a passport to one that conveyeth a box of linen to the Queen of Scots, who leaveth not this town for three or four days. I think your lordship shall see somewhat written on some of the linen contained in the same, that shall be worth the reading. Her Majesty, under colour of seeing the fashion of the rvffes, may cause the several parcels of linen to be held to the fire, whereby the writing may appear ; for I judge there will be some such matter discovered, which was the cause why I did the more willingly grant the passport." ^ It is an amusing fact that Elizabeth was no less interested in obtaining a first peep of Mary's French fashions than her ministers were in penetrating the ciphered mysteries contained in the letters, addressed to the royal captive by her uncles and cousins of the house of Guise, and the Duke of Alva. Walsingham, in a subsequent letter to Mary's secretary, candidly acknowledges " that, in opening the coffers of the Queen of Scots, he found certain hoods, which so pleased certain ladies of his acquaintance, that he had taken the liberty to detain a couple."^ Can any one believe that a grave Secretary of State like Wal- singham would have dared to admit his female friends to the opening of coffers intrusted to him by the French Ambassador for transmission, by permission of his own Sovereign, to so important a prisoner of state as the anointed Sovereign of Scotland, Queen-Dowager of France, and next in blood to the royal succession of England ? or that any lady whom he might thus rashly admit, save one, • Shrewsbury to Burleigh — "Wright's Elizabeth, January 20, 1572. ' Autograph letter from Walsingham to Burleigh, in a contemporary volume in possession of Dr O'Callaghan. * State Paper Office MS. MARY STUART. ^ 183 the all-powerful Elizabeth herself, would be privileged by hira, after Inspecting the millinery of the captive Queen, to select such head-dresses as pleased her own fancy, and detain them from their royal owner ? The fact speaks for itself, and is truly characteristic of the virgin Queen's pas- sion for dress in all its varieties ; and if Mary had not clearly understood the matter, she would not have failed to complain of the abstraction of her two hoods by Mr Secre- tary Walslngham. But not only did she submit to the larceny with a good grace, but took the hint, and acted upon it, by ordering the most costly and elegant hoods that could be devised in Paris for the express purpose of pre- senting them to the Queen of England. She knitted also gold reseilles, and embroidered rare and beautiful articles of feminine decoration, In the hope of propitiating her. i A rumour that another project for the enfranchisement of the Queen of Scots, by stealing her away from the keep- ing of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was meditated by her secret friends, being communicated to him on the 1st of March, he wrote this emphatic declaration to Queen Elizabeth in reply: " I have her sure enough, and shall keep her forthcoming at your Majesty's commandment, either quick or dead^ whatso- ever she, or any for her, invent to the contrary ; and as I have no doubt at all of her (aptitude in) stealing away from me, so if any forcible attempt be made for her, the greatest peril is sure to be hers."' ^ A declaration that plainly betrays the ruthless determination that had been adopted In regard to Mary for Shrewsbury was not the man to lay violent hands on a defenceless woman, and she the next in blood to the Crown, on his own responsibility. Mary's uncle, Claude of Lorraine, the Due d'Aumale, was slain that March by a cannon-ball at the siege of E,och- elle, on which she makes this pathetic comment : " The news has been brought me, as current in London, of the death of my uncle, Monsieur d'Aumale. I am touched with afflic- tions from all sides. God, in His mercy, be my help ! I 1 Labanoff. ^ Shrewsbury to the Queen, Sheffield Castle, March 3d, 1572-73— Lodge, vol. ii. p. 13. 184 MARY STUART. know that he was born to die, and praise God that he has been pleased to call him while performing the duty he owed his King.''' Mary was permitted to receive letters from the French Ambassador on the 25th of April, but they only increased her dejection, by informing her of the privations of the gallant defenders of Edinburgh Castle, and that her faithful Protestant friend, Lady Livingston, had been arrested on her return to Scotland, and was languishing in prison.^ The important fact was about the same time announced by Burleigh to Shrewsbury, " that Queen Elizabeth had, after due deliberation, signified her pleasure that a Scotch boy, named Will Blake, might be admitted to wait on Queen Mary, provided Shrewsbury knew no cause to the contrary; to which the noble castellan replied, " that considering the said Will to be a painful drudge, unable to serve to other ends, he had admitted him into bis house, and that his mis- tress rather misliked than liked his service." ^ In the beginning of May, Shrewsbury, finding Sheffield Castle in so dilapidated a state as to require a thorough course of repair, took the liberty of removing himself, his family, and his royal charge to the Lodge in the Park,* — a more salubrious and comfortable abode for them all. Bur- leigh's secretary, Dr Wilson, encountering Shrewsbury's son, Gilbert Talbot, at Court soon after, inquired " if it were true that his father had removed with his charge to the Lodge,^ and whether he had the consent of the Council ? " Talbot replied, " that the removal was necessary in order to cleanse and sweeten the Castle." And on Wilson ob- serving "that there had been a project for conveying that lady out of the Lodge," rejoined, "that the Earl, his father, took great heed to her, keeping numbers of men continually armed, watching both by day and night under her windows, » Mary to La Mothe Fenelon, April 11, 1573— Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 71. ^ Shrewsbury to Burleigh, April 25, 1570— Lodge. ^ Ibid. * Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 70. ^ The apartments occupied by Queen Mary in SheflBeld Lodge or Manor- House are no longer in existence. They are supposed to have been situated in the vring adjoining the ruined tower, about a hundred yards from that part of the building now used as a farmhouse. The window in her bedroom, traditionally pointed out as that from which her escape MARY STUAKT. 185 over her chamber, and on every side of her, so that unless she could transform herself into a flea or a mouse, it was impossible she could escape." ^ was to have been attempted, was removed about twenty years ago, together with some portions of the masonry from the crumbling desecrated pile, by the late venerable literary philanthropist, Samuel Roberts, the friend of James Montgomery, to his own grounds. Park Grange, and placed in the memorial tower he had erected as a testimonial of his respect — the respect of a good and deep-thinking man— for the virtues and heroic spirit of this unfortunate Princess, of whom he had previously written a life and vindi- cation, which, together with the eloquent descriptive poetry illustrative of Mary's imprisonment at Sheffield Lodge and Castle, by his amiable daughter. Miss Mary Roberts, was published in a volume entitled The Royal Eodle. The inscription for Queen Mary's window, written by Mr Roberts in his eightieth year, is full of moral beauty, — " Alone, here oft may Scotia's beauteous Queen, Through tears, have gazed upon the lovely scene, Victim of villany, of woman's hate, Of fiery zeal, of wiles and storms of state ; Torn from her throne, her countiy, and her child. And cast an exiled monarch on this wild. She here was taught, what youthful beauty ne'er. While seated on a throne, had deign'd to hear, To say submissive, at the closing scene, ' 'Tis well that I have thus afflicted been ; ' Then, calmly on the block, in faith, resign Three heart-corrupting crowns, for one divine ; Reader ! — the ways of God are not like thine '. " • Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury, May 11, 1571— Lodge's Illustrations. MARY STUAET. CHAPIEE LIV. 4 SUMMARY. Mary's last hopes extinguished by the fall of Edinburgh Castle— Kirkaldy's testimony of her innocence — Her grief for his tragic fate — Her fresh attack of sickness— She petitions to go to Buxton — Reluctant leave granted by Elizabeth — Tantalising delays— Mary removed to Chatsworth — Visited by her French Chancellor there— Her long-deferred journey to Buxton accomplished — Her abode at the Old Hall — Beneficial effect of the waters — She explores the cavern at Poole's Hole— Remanded back to Chatsworth — Her devotional poem — Earnest desire of tidings of her son — Reiterated demand of her jewels — Incendiary reports made of her to Elizabeth— She requests the French Ambassador to send her mate- rials for needlework — Her conscientious dealings in her accounts — Traits of kindness to her servants — Fears of being consigned to a new keeper — Apprehensions of poison — Endeavours to propitiate Elizabeth by pre- sents — Three candidates for Mary's hand — Her attempts to get her son out of Morton's power — Precocious promise of the child — Buchanan's tyranny and personal cruelty to him — Death of Roullet, Mary's faithful French Secretary — Slirewsbury seizes his papers — Mary's indignation — Cardinal Lorraine's selfish proceedings about her French property — Unfair advantage takeii by the Court of France — Her want of money — Importunity of her French servants — She sends sweetmeats and other presents to Queen Elizabeth — Elizabeth's gracious acceptance of Mary's needlework — Mary's fondness for domestic pets — Rears birds — Sends for little dogs — Fresh apprehensions of being poisoned — Grief for her uncle's death — Her life endangered by an earthquake — She works three night- caps for Queen Elizabeth— Gets leave to go to Buxton — Burleigh meets her there — Jealousy of Queen Elizabeth — Interesting token of regard sent to Mary by Darnley's mother — Proofs of affectionate and confidential correspondence between her and Mary after the death of Lennox. The tantfilising gleam of hope which the return of Kirk- aldy of Grange and Lethington to their allegiance, and their gallant defence of Edinburgh Castle, had kindled in the desolate heart of the captive Sovereign of Scotland, was MARY STUART. 187 extinguished by the surrender of that royal fortress to the English forces under Sir William Drury, on the 29th of May 1573. All the money Mary had received from her French dowry, or could raise on her personal responsi- bility, or beg from the King of Spain and the Pope, had been devoted to the assistance of the besieged. Prodigies of valour had been performed, and sufferings, too pain- ful to recapitulate, endured by them for her sake. At last the only well in the Castle was choked up by the battering down of David's Tower ; then the garrison, to use the words of their brave commander, " bought water with blood," by being let down by ropes, under a shower of bul- lets, to fill their buckets at a spring at the foot of the rock."!^ This spring was poisoned by the besiegers, which drove the garrison to despair, and compelled Kirkaldy to relin- quish the hopeless struggle. He sent for the English com- mander, and surrendered the Castle and his loyal associates, among whom were several ladies of high rank, to him, fondly imagining that by so doing the lives of all parties would be safe under the protection of Queen Elizabeth, of whom he and Lethington had formerly been secret-service- men and pensioners, while undermining the throne of their native Sovereign. But they had forfeited the favour of the all-powerful English dictatress by breaking their guilty league with Moray, Mar, and Morton, proclaiming Queen Mary's authority, and displaying her banner on the Castle of Edinburgh. Kirkaldy had also written a political poem, which Calderwood calls a caustic rhyme, severely reflecting on her foes and calumniators, denouncing those who had once been ecclesiastics as " Proud, poisoned Pharisees," " Who wrongfully wrought, When they their Queen so piteously, To prison strong had brought, Abused her, accused her, With serpent words fell, 01 shavelings and Vebels — The hideous hounds of hell." * ' Very interesting particulars will be found in Grant's Memorials of Edinburgh Castle, and the Life of Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, by the same author. * Dalziel's Poems of the Sixteenth Century. 188 MARY STUART. These rugged lines are well deserving of attention, not ' merely as a specimen of the characteristic causticity of the valiant Kirkaldy's poetry, but as containing his avowal of the cruel and unjust manner in which Queen Mary had been maligned by the members of the usurping faction, and their literary organ the " shaveling Buchanan. This testimony, from the pen of Kirkaldy of Grange, is the more important from the fact that he was closely allied with that faction at the time when the accusations, to which he so indignantly alludes, were devised against their hapless Sovereign, and had rendered himself an active agent in repeating thera. The letter written by him to Bedford, accusing Mary, in no gentle terms, of having procured Bothwell to murder her husband, of having contrived her own abduction and plotted the murder of her infant, has been so frequently quoted, among other fallacious testimo- nies of her guilt, that it is satisfactory to be able to show that, if he had been deluded into forming the opinion expressed in that letter, he lived to change it, acknowledged her innocence and the falsehood of her accusers, branded Morton as the contriver, and Archibald Douglas as the executor, of the murder he had previously charged on her ; and after performing prodigies of unavailing valour, in the vain attempt to restore her to the throne from which he had been one of the principal instruments in hurling her, sealed his testimony to her integrity with his blood.l Sir William Drury, though unable to guarantee the lives of his brave prisoners, promised to use his influence on their behalf with his Sovereign, and conducted them and the ladies who had been taken in the Castle to his own lodgings at Leith. Among the ladies were ' The quotation of part of another stanza from Kirkaldy's ballad may not be deemed irrelevant, if further proof of his respect for his injured Sove- reign be required, — " I heard one say within this place, Seek aid of God and France ; I shall within a little space Thy sorrows all redress : With help of Christ thou shalt in peace Thy kindly Queen possess." Quoted by Grant, ibid. p. 156— State Paper Office MS. MAEY STUART. 189 Queen Mary's illegitimate sister, the Countess of Argyll, the Countess of Home, Lady Kirkaldy, and Lady Letliing- ton, one of the four Maries. There were thirty-four females in all ; but the number of these had been sadly diminished during the siege, by the capture and execu- tion of several of the soldiers' wives, who had cour- ageously adventured, being let down with ropes from the rock, and stealing into the city, to purchase food for their starving husbands. Some of these conjugal heroines had succeeded in introducing supplies in that way ; but the greater number were detected and remorselessly hanged by the order of the Regent Morton. Among these were matrons whose situation ought to have protected them from becoming the victims of such unprecedented bar- barity. Tragedies of the most revolting nature occurred in several instances under these dreadful circumstances, as we learn from a letter written by Lethington to Queen Mary,^ imploring her to exert herself for the relief of her unfortunate adherents. The effect of such communi- cation would only have been to agonise the captive Sove- reign in her utter helplessness; but the letter was inter- cepted ; she therefore escaped the horror of learning that deeds, which would have disgraced the wickedest of heathen nations, were perpetrated in her own metropolis in the eye of day. The regalia of Scotland, and all Queen Mary's jewels, save those which the Good Eegent, Moray, had sold to Queen Elizabeth in May 1568, or devoted to the personal decora- tion of his own wife, were in Edinburgh Castle at the time of its surrender. Morton took possession of these, in the name of the httle King, and prudently sent several parcels of them to the English captor, whether as offerings to him, or to Queen Ehzabeth, we do not presume to specify ; probably both were assigned their share of the spoils. Mary's faithful old jeweller, James Mossman, who was taken in the Castle, had endeavoured to preserve some of the most valuable of these decorations from the greedy clutches of the Regent, by delivering them in pledge for ^ In cipher, dated August 10, 1572— Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 430. 190 MARY STUAET. her to Lady Home, Lady Lethington, and others of the ( ladies. Sir Robert Melville took possession of others, and the valiant Captain himself. Sir William Kirkaldy i of Grange, whose besetting sin was covetousness, before i he surrendered his sword to Sir William Drury, secreted 1 a choice selection of the most precious in his hose or ■ nether garments. Poor Mossman was compelled to come to confession, either by the torture of the boot or the , terror of it, and ladies, as well as gentlemen, were forced i to relinquish whatever they had taken, either for their ! royal mistress or themselves. | No one had acted a baser part in the conspiracy for \ Mary's defamation and dethronement than Lethington. ; His contrivance of the murder of her husband resulted \ possibly from motives of self-preservation, in consequence of the vindictive temper and uncompromising animosity manifested against himself by that rash Prince; but of Mary his own pen has left on record that she was " a Prin- cess so gentle and benign, and whose behaviour hath been i always such towards her subjects, that wonder it is that any \ could be found so ungracious as once to think evil of I her."^ Yet he had taken the spokesman's part in intro- j ducing to the English Commissioners at York the abomin- ; able letters, pretended by him and his confederates to have ! been written by her to Bothwell, for the purpose of making j her out a monster in woman's form, and had sworn that | they were written by her own hand, and that her abduc- i tion was collusive. j Elizabeth commanded Drury " to deliver his prisoners to \ the Regent, to be dealt with as he pleased." Lethington j ended his days by poison, but whether administered by his | own hands, as Sir James Melville affirms, or, as other con- i temporaries report, by the orders of Morton, it is impos- i sible to decide. It is certain, however, that Morton, who was very desirous of his death, yet dared not risk the con- j sequences of his last dying speech and confession, by bring- I ing him publicly to the scaffold for Darnley's murder, for i which he had been already attainted and forfeited in two ; ' Letter of Lethington to Cecil, Nov. 14, 1562— Keith, p. 232. MARY STUAET. 191 successive Parliaments, was the first person who insinuated that he had committed suicide ; for, in a very remarkable letter to the Countess of Lennox, announcing the surrender of the Castle to Queen Elizabeth's forces, he says : " Leth- ington, the fountain of all the mischiefs, departed this life at Leith, hastening the same himself, as some has judged not altogether causelessly." ^ Morton's apprehensions of Leth- ington's disclosures of the particulars of their guilty confe- deracy for Darnley's murder, did not end with the death of his wretched brother in iniquity : somewhat of these had, he suspected, been made to Sir WiUiam Drury, against whom he thus endeavours to prejudice Lady Lennox, in the futile hope of deterring her from listening to his reports of the last words of one to whom the full particulars of that black mystery were so well known : " I must also fore- warn your Grace to be wary and circumspect with the Marshal of Berwick's information, who had the charge of her Highness's forces on this service, for that he is un- doubtedly a secret friend to our enemies, and has not dealt willingly nor sincerely in the charge he had in hand." " Morton also urges her to exert her influence with Elizabeth to dismiss Drury from the office of Marshal of Berwick, and appoint KilHgrew in his place ; nor does he conclude his incendiary letter without aiming a shaft at the life of his captive Sovereign, by observing : " Howbeit the ground of all the trouble remains in her Majesty's hands and power, whereunto I doubt not her Highness will put order as she finds time; and for the present, I will not be further curious; ' The body of the wretched Lethington long remained unburied at Leith ; and there is a pathetic letter from his sorrowful widow, the beautiful and once light-minded Mary Fleming, to Burleigh, significantly reminding him that " as her husband, when alive, expected to receive no small benefits at his hands, so she trusted that the Queen of England might, by his means, be moved to write to the Regent of Scotland that the body of her late husband, which, when alive, had not been spared in her Highness's service, might not, after his death, receive shame or ignominy; and tliat his estates, which had been taken from him during his life, might be restored to her and her children." — Cotton. Lib. Calig. C. iv. f. 102. Elizabeth and Burleigh always left their tools in the lurch; but Lethington's friend, the Earl of AthoU, insisted that his body should not remain any longer above ground, and took upon himself the performance of his obsequies. ^ Inedited letter from the Regent Morton to Margaret, Countess of Lennox, June 1573 — Hopetoun MSS. 192 MARY STUART. liowljelt I shall earnestly wish the best, and if I knew how to procure it, I would with great effect apply my travail." Morton, with all his subtlety, knew little of female curio- sity, much less of the intensity of maternal feeling, if he imagined that aught he could say would deter the mother of Darnley from inquiring of Sir William Drury if Leth- ington had made disclosures regarding the authors of the mysterious murder of her son. The hatred and horror she subsequently expressed of Morton, with whom she had hitherto kept up, as this very letter proves, a confidential correspondence, tells its own tale. " She lived," Mary emphatically observes, " to acknowledge how much she had been abused [imposed on] in regard to me." Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, with his brother James, were hanged at the Market Cross of Edinburgh on the 3d of August. They were attended on the scaffold by Mr David Lindsay, an eminent Presbyterian minister, who reminded the gallant defenders of the Castle of the predic- tion of John Knox, lately deceased, " That he should be dragged from the rock in which he trusted, and hanged up in the face of the sun." Grange, a firm member of the Eeformed Church of Scotland, appeared duly impressed with the fulfilment of the prophecy, and professed himself deeply penitent for his sins, but not for that return to his loyalty which had provoked the denunciation, for he ex- pressed unshaken attachment to his captive Sovereign with his lastbreath. Honest Mossman, Mary's jeweller,with Cocky her goldsmith, were hanged the same day for the offence of coining money, with Queen Mary's superscription, in Edin- burgh Castle, to pay the wages of the garrison. ^ When the fall of her last stronghold in Scotland, and the tragic fate of its defenders, were exultingly communicated by the Earl of Shrewsbury to Mary in her prison, she was cut to the heart, and told him bitterly, " That he was always a messenger of evil tidings, and never brought her anything good." In pursuance of the instructions he 1 Ty tier's Hist. Scot., vol. vii. p. 349. Grant's Life of Kirkaldy of Grange. Killigrew to Burleigh, Aug. 3, 1573— State Paper Office MS. Melville's Memoirs. MARY STUAET. 193 had previously received from Burleigli and Elizabeth " to tempt her patience," Shrewsbury told her " that she ought to be obliged to the Queen his Sovereign for the great charge and expense she had put herself to in recovering Edinburgh Castle from the Scotch rebels, and reducing it to the authority of her son." " How," exclaimed Mary, indignantly, " can your Queen expect me to thank her for depriving me of my faithful friends ? Alas ! " added she, with a flood of tears, " henceforth I will neither hear nor speak of Scotland more ! " ^ Her distress, and the con- straint she endeavoured to put on the outward manifestation of her feelings, is thus communicated by her cold-hearted jailer to Burleigh : " She makes little show of any grief, yet this news nips her very sore." Mary herself explains to Elizabeth the reason of her reserve on this heart-rending sub- ject : " When I heard of the loss of my Castle of Edinburgh, and other painful matters, perceiving that they took pleasure in speaking more of it to me than was intended for my conso- lation, I plainly refused to converse on the subject, that I might not furnish pastime to any one with my irremediable woe, nor give cause to them to misrepresent my words." ^ Mary remained overwhelmed with grief too deep for utterance for many months after these terrible events. She had been suffering severely for a long time with chronic inflammation and induration of the liver from want of air and exercise, aggravated by mental distress ; her right arm was also disabled by rheumatism. She repeatedly petitioned for leave to go to Buxton, to try the salubrious warm spring there, but in vain. Shrews- bury, though he had himself derived signal benefit from the use of the Buxton baths and waters, was too cautious to back the urgent entreaties of the captive invalid that she 1 Chalmers. Grant's Kirkaldy of Grange, Mary did not forget the help- less widow of Kirkaldy of Grange. Years after, on hearing of her distress, she ordered Mauvissiere to pay her forty crowns from the slender store he had in hand of her French dower. She recommended the unfortunate widow and daughter of Kirkaldy for situations in the household of her relatives of Guise, but they preferred using her bounty for the purpose of bringing them home to Scotland. — Maiy to Mauvissiere, Sheffield Castle, Sept. 2, 15C2. . ^ Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 113. VOL. VII. N 194 MARY STUART. might be permitted to have recourse to the same panacea. ' When the matter was referred to him, he answered, doubt- fully, that " he did not know what need she had of the Bux- ton Well ; but if it pleased the Lords of the Council to give directions for that purpose, he would carry her thither, and keep her as safely there as where she now was."^ Mary reproached him with being the hinderer of her health by stopping her journey, and complained more piteously than usual " of the hardness of her side." A reluctant assent was at length extorted by the French Ambassador, and Burleigh wrote to Shrewsbury, by his Sovereign's command, to signify her pleasure " that, if his lordship thought he could without peril conduct the Queen of Scots to the Well of Buxton, he was to do so ; but not to allow the time to be known beforehand, nor strangers to resort thither during her abode there." The season for taking the Buxton waters and baths was at that time limited to the months of June, July, and ' August. Mary had commenced her applications to be allowed to proceed thither for that purpose in the early part of June, in which month they were considered most efficacious; but it was not till the 10th of August that Burleigh signified Queen Elizabeth's ungracious consent. Mary had been removed to Chatsworth by Shrewsbury on the 1st of that month, and on the 17th she was still there, for on that day she dates a letter from thence to Bur- leigh — a letter of thanks for the unexpected favour that had been accorded by Elizabeth, of allowing M. du Ver- gier, the chancellor of her French dower estates, to visit her in her prison, to render her an account of her pecuniary affairs, and the proceedings of the lawsuits be- queatlied to her by the late Queen her mother. Du Ver- gier was accompanied by the Sieur de Vassal, the Frencli Ambassador's maitre d'hotel. Both were permitted to spend several days beneath the same roof with her, during which time the rigour of her imprisonment was relaxed, of which she thus writes to La Mothe Fendlon : — ^ Lodge, vol. ii. pp. 28, 29. MARY STUAET. 195 " The good treatment I receive from the Earl of Shrewsbury while M. du Vergier and the Sieur de Vassal are here, with free permission to confer with them, is done that I may not complain of past ill-usage, as I had intended ; but as soon as they shall have departed, he will repeat his former incivility. I am willing, however, to pass this over, and, if it be possible, to arrange the means of corresponding with you beyond what passes through their hands. But if I am compelled to send my letters to you open, I will complain of my bad treatment in them, and I pray you to take occasion therefore to speak effectually to the Queen of England of it, and to declare to her the particulars I have previously mentioned to you." In her postscript she entreats him " to use his utmost efforts with the Queen of England for the restoration of the jewels and other valuables belonging to her in the Castle of Edinburgh;" a request that was oft but fruit- lessly reiterated, although, for the honour of England, Elizabeth ought, at least, to have restored to her bereaved kinswoman such parcels of them as had been delivered by- Morton to Sir William Drurj, in recompense for the iniqui- tous assistance she had rendered by casting her sword into the scale of the usurping faction.^ Mary's journey to Buxton was delayed till nearly the last of August, the end of the season, when Elizabeth can- didly told the French Ambassador, " she thought, as it was so late, it would do her harm rather than good ]" but the anxiety of the sick and drooping captive for the change, which was also much required by her ladies and the other faithful companions of her long and weary durance, prompted her to accept the permission that had been so tardily ac- corded. Escorted by Shrewsbury and a strong guard of soldiers, and accompanied by his vigilant Countess and her daughters, Mary was at last removed from Chatsworth to Buxton, a distance of only thirteen or fourteen miles, over a chain of precipitous and romantic hills, that might well have reminded her of the scenery of her beloved and unforgotten Scotland. She was conducted by Shrewsbury to his own pleasant mansion in Low Buxton, no other than the comfortable family hotel or boarding-house now distin- guished by the name of the Old Hall. It was then of much greater extent and importance, for the portion of the edifice ^ Labanofif, vol. iv. p. 82. Ibid. 196 MARY vSTUAET. now remaining was only the strong central tower in which Queen Mary, her attendants and guards, were lodged. The apartments occupied by herself are still inhabitable, and are eagerly competed for by many of the modern visitors to Buxton Wells, on account both of their salubrious aspect and the spell of romantic interest which her name attaches to every place connected with her mournful history. Bux- ton was the only place in England that made an impression on her sufficiently agreeable for her to wish to revisit it ; but she derived peculiar benefit from the waters, even at that late season of the year. Sheltered from the bleakness of the winds by the lofty hill, at the foot of which the Old Hall is built, the bland yet bracing air of that mountain valley re- vived her dejected spirits, and appears, for the time, to have animated herewith new life. She is even said to have ex- plored the dismal cavern of Poole's Hole, situated at the foot of Grinlaw Hill, about half a mile west of Buxton, and penetrated as far as the stalactital group, which has, in memory of her, been distinguished by the name of Mary Queen of Scots' pillar — no very easy or agreeable exploit for a person of her towering height, every visitor having, at times, to stoop nearly double, and scramble over a wet, rough, irregular path, among broken, tottering, and dis- jointed stones, at risk of dislocating an ankle, breaking a leg, or slipping down into the black murky stream that creeps sullenly below this perilous causeway.^ It was not the amusements and lively society, usually to be met with at Spas, that produced so beneficial an effect on Mary's health and spirits, for all strangers, whatsoever might be their need of the waters, had been ordered by ^ I must confess that my own courage failed when I attempted to follow the same track, and when midway I reluctantly turned about to retrace my steps, marvelling, the while, at the superior firmness and enterprise of the royal heroine ; but then I was only attended by one of the pigmy ■> female guides and my own maid, a stranger as well as myself to the gloomy mysteries of our subterraneous pilgrimage. I was somewhat embarrassed, withal, by having to carry a lighted candle, rolled round in a bit of cabbage leaf, to guide my darkling steps at the risk of setting fire to my white lace veil, Leghorn bonnet, or shawl, every time I had to stoop and grope my way through a low-arched narrow pass ; but Mary was doubtless preceded by gentlemen bearing torches, who were ready to assist and support her at every difficult step among the slippery boulder-stones and rocky fragments. MARY STUART. Shrewsbury to quit the place, before she was allowed to enter it. Mary was not allowed to remain long enough there to derive more than temporary good from the waters, for she writes on the 27th of September, to La Mothe Fenelon, from Chatswortli : — " As to the tlianks for my journey to Bohsthan [Buxton], which you tell me you have returned to her [Queen Elizabeth], I have written to you several times, praying you to reiterate them, and informing you how I found myself while I was there. I know not if you have received my letters, or whether they have been as long in coming to you as yours have been in reaching me ; therefore I beg you to thank her again for it, and to tell hex", that whereas she was pleased to fear I should find the reverse of what I hoped, that I have not been on the whole disappointed, having, thank God, experienced some relief ; also that I cannot perceive that the / new building could in any way diminish the natural warmth of the water ; for if the season had been more proper, the sun would have reached it without impediment. And if it please her next year to give me the like permission at a better season, and allow me more time to be there, I be- lieve that it will entirely cure me, unless some other accident befall." ' After this favourable testimony of the efficacy of the Bux- ton waters for the alleviation of depressed spirits, indurated liver, and neuralgic pain in the neck and arm, she again mentions her jewels, of which she had sent an inventory to Queen Elizabeth, with an entreaty for her to write to Morton on the subject. She next alludes to an intimation that had been made to her by Shrewsbury, that the Queen of England wished her to pay the expenses of her own table, and declares herself perfectly agreeable to do so. Then she tells him that " M. le Grand Treasurer, Bur- leigh, had assured her that the Queen, her good sister, intended for Shrewsbury to permit her to take exercise either on foot or horseback, whenever she desired, yet she was allowed no more liberty in that way than she had before the coming of M. du Vergier; and if letters were not sent giving such orders in positive terms to Shrewsbury, it would only be treated as mockery."^ " I have so few officials,'' continues she, " that it is impossible they will remain long. There is but one gentleman-in- waiting, and if he fall ill, I shall have to wait on my- self" She desires, in her postscript, to be recommended to ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 82. 2 Ibid. 198 MAEY STUART, the good graces of ray Lord Burleigh and Leicester, and begs the Ambassador " to send her the mithridate, which she has written about before, and the rest of the things she has asked the Sieur de Vassal to buy for her, especially the white silk, for which she is in great haste." ^ Meantime Morton having sent his emissary, Captain Cockburn, with letters to Elizabeth, soliciting her to deliver up the loyal Laird of Fernyhirst and Lesley Bishop of Ross, to be dealt with as persons condemned by the Parliament, Lesley wrote letters to the English Council claiming his privilege as an ambassador, and also addressed one in Latin, in the form of an oration, to Queen Elizabeth, con- taining such ai'guments against her staining her honour by complying with Morton's demand, he having entered England on the faith of her safe-conduct, that she dis- missed Cockburn with a decided negative, and promised to grant Lesley permission to retire to France. In the preceding summer he had obtained leave to write to his royal mistress, informing her that he had been removed from the Tower of London, and consigned to the keeping of the Bishop of Winchester, at Farnham Castle, and at the same time sent her a treatise in Latin, entitled, '■''Medi- tations on Divine Consolations for an Afflicted Soul," written by himself during his confinement in the Tower ; " which," says he, " I dedicated unto her for her comfort, whereof she sent me answer again, which I received at Farnham Castle in September, ' that she liked very well of my treatise, and had received great comfort thereby, but was sorry that I had gotten no farther liberty than to be transported from one prison to another,' and sent her com- mandment to cause the French Ambassador to be paid such sums of money as he had disbursed for my relief forth of the Tower. After this time I could get no license to write to the Queen my mistress again till the winter thereafter, because of such troubles as were both in France and Scot- land, which made me to be more straitlv looked to, and therefore I thought it most expedient to follow my book • earnestly, and exercise myself in study and contemplation ; ^ LabanofF, toI. iv. p. 84. MARY STUAET. 199 and in respect the Queen my mistress was so much com- forted by the last treatise I sent her, I took occasion to write another, which was entitled, Tranquilli Animi Con- servatio et Munimentum, which was completed and sent to the Council of England in June 1573, where it was per- used, and license granted me to send it to the Queen my mis- tress, which I did primo Octobris 1573, whereof I received answer again, ' that the same liked her well,' and therewith sent a testimony of her diligent perusing the first treatise of the godly meditations, out of which she had drawn summary collections, and put the same in French metre, which is patent to be seen ; and at the same time Mr Thomas Lesley, ray servant, translated the former meditations into English, and sent the same unto her Majesty, who was pleased therewith, and found the same well translated." ^ Queen Mary's French poem extends to about eighty lines, in short-metre couplets, reflecting, with true Christian philosophy, on the vanity and uncertainty of earthly great- ness, the consolation to be derived from the grace of God and the intercession made by His blessed Son for penitent sinners. The following translation of the opening lines, which refer to her own reverse of fortunes, may serve as a specimen of the style : — " At the season when repose Should awhile all cares depose, Memory of my bitter life, Fraught with ills and ceaseless strife, Cometh o'er me to destroy Slumber's brief oblivious joy, Bringing to mine eyes the change From bliss to bale, abrupt and strange ; Hence sad drops of speechless woe O'er my cheek incessant flow, Till I seek to draw relief From deep communings with grief, And themes which bid vain mortals know The uncertain term of all below. * Lesley's Negotiations, in Anderson's Collections, vol. iii. pp. 248, 249. Both these devotional treatises, in Latin, were printed in Paris in the year 1574, in a small volume, together with Queen Mary's French poem, which had been suggested by their perusal. This is what he means by saying that they were " patent to be seen." 200 MAEY STUART. Prince, nor king, nor emperour, Of life or state can be secure ; Generous race and high degree — None exempt from misei'y." ^ Our limits preclude further quotation, however interest- ing to follow the captive Queen through the train of melan- choly moralising, which conducts her to the foot of the Cross, as the only refuge from the storms and vanities of a world of care and sin, with the avowal " that none can approach to partake of pardon and peace unless drawn by the pre-venient grace of a compassionate Redeemer." Surely the afflictions that had impressed this great truth on her heart might be accounted blessings ! She was, however, doomed to drink a cup, overflowing with the gall of this world's bitterness, to the dregs, before she could enter into the heavenly rest for which she sighed. In consequence of some offence or suspicion conceived by Elizabeth, Mary was, in the beginning of November, removed from Chatsworth to the stronger and more gloomy prison of Sheffield Castle. She writes from thence to La Mothe Fendlon on the 8th of that month, expressing her pleasure at receiving letters of a recent date, through him, from her relations in France, and lamenting that, with all her care and caution, she could not guard against the serpentine tongues of determined falsifiers, who had misrepresented to the Queen of England something she had said.^ She writes again to him, at great length, on the 30th of November, on various subjects of importance, directing him, in the first place, " to let the Bishop of Ross have five hundred crowns, out of a payment on account of her dower-pension, as a mark of her gratitude for his meritorious services, which she regretted not being able to reward as they deserved." ^ The Bishop had just before sent his servant, Thomas Lesley, to Sheffield Castle with letters, a copy of his book, or register of his services, a copy of the oration he had addressed to Elizabeth, and an instrument ' The poem has been published at full length, in the original French, in the first volume of the Bannatyne Club Miscellany. * LabanofF, vol. iv. ^ Ibid. MARY STUART. 201 requiring to be signed by his captive Sovereign, signifying her approbation of his proceedings, and discharging him from the perilous office of her ambassador to her unfriendly sister Queen. Shrewsbury read all these over before he suffered the bearer to present them to Mary, which, after this task was accomplished, was done in his presence.^ Mary tells La Mothe Fendlon, " that she has written to thank the Queen of England for the permission the Bishop of Ross has at last been granted to depart, and that she will not herself fail to follow, on all occasions, the good advice of the great Treasurer Burleigh, and the Earl of Leicester," who had succeeded during her visit to Buxton in persuading her that they were very much her friends ; " and she doubted not that their recommenda- tion to M. de Shrewsbury to allow her to take such rea- sonable exercise as might tend to the improvement of her health, would give her cause to do so."^ Then she begs him to renew her entreaties to Elizabeth to write to Morton to restore her jewels that were in Edinburgh Castle : — " It seems," continues Mary, " that he has charged those who defended the Castle with having separated and dispersed them into the hands of merchants and workmen, which is only to serve him as an excuse for steal- ing them himself ; for he has slain those who had the charge of them, and were responsible to me for them, and, at least, could have testified where they were, whereby he has too clearly manifested his cunning and dis- honesty. But as the Queen my good sister has such power over him, I think she will not permit him to commit such a robbery. The Earl of Moray never pretended they were kept for any one but me, as he declared plainly before his death ; although Morton often tried to persuade him, as I have been told, to disperse them, in order to get a share, having often proved that there is no imposture or any other wickedness that he would not commit or participate in where he had a hope of booty and rapine. And by this he would also show that his heart is disloyal to my son, who it may well be believed would rather they should be given to me, who have been and still am to him a mother, than to any other person. Now, seeing, that he [Morton] cannot find any colour or pretext for saying that they do not belong to me, he has dared cruelly to dip his hands in the blood of my faithful servants to cover in this matter his avarice." ' 1 Shrewsbury to Burleigh, Nov. 30, 1573 — Lodge. ? Labanofif, vol. iv. p. 91. * Ibid. 202 MAEY STUAET. It was the execution of Kirkaldj, the Governor of Edin- burgh Castle, to which Marj thus repeatedly and indig- nantly alludes, and then she passionately adds : — " But if I cannot have my right through the interposition of the Queen my good sister, to whom he renders entire obedience, I will take another way, by sending it" (the inventory of her jewels) " to those who have the means of calling Morton, and all who belong to him, to such an account as will make him feel they are not for his use." ' • She means her mother-in-law, the Countess of Lennox, who, as the grandmother of the little King, was peculiarlj- interested in preventing the alienation of the jewels, that were heirlooms to the Crown of Scotland, that lady having acquired, withal, such an insight into Morton's tricks as would render her a very formidable personage to be brought forward in a public controversy with him. Mary thus pro- ceeds : — " On the answer that was made to you touching the articles presented by you and Du Vergier, there was added in a marginal note, ' that my good sister has written into Scotland to the Regent, to the effect that my jewels were to be carefully kept till the King was of full age.' This does not accord with what you had written to me of the intention of my said good sister, that she would make them be given up to me, knowing they were mine ! Moreover, the names of Regent and of King are titles ill applied, and falsely pretended, which could not, and ought not, to be approved by any one, especially those who would seem to show some regard to equity and justice. I know Morton as a private man, a rebel subject, and notorious traitor to me his Queen and Sovereign Princess. . . . As to my son, be might justly be called Prince of Scotland, but not King, during my life." * After this spirited assertion of her regal rights, and com- plaining of her deprivation of freedom of worship, she con- cludes with the following natural expressions of maternal anxiety for the health of the innocent rival of her throne: — " I am in great distress at not having any tidings of my son. Although the Earl of Shrewsbury, when I ask him, always says that he has not heard otherwise (thank God !) than that he is well ; and this bearer, of whom I have made inquiry, has also assured me of the same, which, as neither you nor the Bishop of Ross have written anything to the contrary to me, consoles me ; — yet, as I cannot but feel apprehensive till I am thoroughlj'- assured about it, I entreat you, Monsieur de la Mothe Fenelon, to obtain, if possible, of the Queen my good sister, permission to have tidings of him, ^ Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 92. 2 Ibid. p. 92. MARY STUART. 203 from time to time, on whicli I can depend. He is all I have in the world, and the older I grow, the more foolish mother do I become, in which, however, I think I may be pardoned ; and, being deprived of the sight of him, if, at least, I can be assured of his health, my ills would be half allevi- ated, and I could bear my afflictions more easily." ' Fresh troubles were, however, preparing for the forlorn captive, in consequence of the arrest of Cocker, the ser- vant of the Bishop of Koss, whose confessions convicted her of the grave offence of corresponding with the two physi- cians, Apslow and Good,^ whose prescriptions had proved so beneficial to her in her dangerous illness in the autumn of 1570. Early in the year 1574, Mary was agitated by the arrival of a deputation of Commissioners, headed by Wade, one of the English Secretaries of State, who came to announce the great displeasure the Queen their Sovereign had conceived against her for the unbefitting words she had spoken of her Majesty, and for evil practices in distri- buting money in bribes to pervert and seduce loyal subjects into treason, also to question her about her secret corre- spondence both in England and abroad.^ Mary haughtily replied, that she was falsely accused, and would answer none of their interrogations. " I esteem myself very unfortunate," she writes to Elizabeth, " to have found, in my adversity, so many persons ready to injure me by all sorts of practices ; for I have not, that I am aware, acted unkindly by any one ; yet they will not allow a day to pass without raising some new report of me, to provoke your auger and suspicion, of which I had thought to avoid giving any occasion. I say this, since it has pleased you to send M. Wade, and others your commissioners, who have made declaration to me, in your name, of your wrath against me. • I have forced myself neither to speak, write, treat, nor even to think of anything that might serve you as a reason for continuing your animosity You are informed that I have corrupted your subjects with my money ; but if you will be pleased to in- quire into it, you will find this is but a supposition, and that, as I have be- fore written by the Sieur de la Mothe F^ne'lon, I have need enough of what revenue I possess for other things, without having money so expended here which I require to pay my servants and procure necessaries." * As no evidence could be produced against Mary beyond the confessions that had been extorted from Cocker, the storm passed over without worse consequences to her than ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 100. 3 Labanoff, vol. iv. pp. 112, 118. ^ Camden's Annals. * Labanoff, vol. iv. pp. 142, 143. 204 MARY STUART. the renewal of the restrictions on her exercise in the open air, which had been relaxed in consequence of the persever- ing intercessions of the Court of France in her behalf. The undisguised preference of the handsome Henry, Duke of Anjou, for the throneless captive Mary Stuart, had been a source of deep mortification to Elizabeth, and the chivalric tone in which he had always advocated Mary's cause in the Council Chamber, as well as privately, urging the Ministers of his royal brother, Charles IX., to exert themselves for her liberation, had rather injured than assisted her whom he desired to serve. He had recently been elected King of Poland, and Elizabeth's jealousy had been especially pro- voked at this crisis by the report communicated by Wal- singham,^ that he had applied to the Pope, through Car- dinal de Lorraine, for a dispensation, to enable him to contract matrimony with his fair sister-in-law, to whom he had been undoubtedly a most persevering suitor. It is, how- ever, certain that Mary considered her previous marriage with his eldest brother, her ever regretted Francis, an insu- perable barrier to her union with him ; and that she never, even for reasons of political expediency, afforded the slight- est encouragement to his pretensions, though much attached to him as a family connection. Mary was at this time collecting materials for a very elaborate piece of needlework. " I must give you the trouble," writes she to the French Ambassador, " of procur- ing for me, and sending as soon as you can, eight ells of car- nation satin, of the colour of the pattern I enclose, from a better choice than you can find in London ; but I shall want to have it in a fortnight, together with a pound of silver < thread, the finest that can be made. I will shortly give you an account of the purpose to which I think to apply it" ^ Her requisition was faithfully complied with by his Ex- cellency, and within the time she specified, for she writes to him on the 10th of March :^ " I have had the token and commissions delivered to me, which you have sent to ^ Complete Ambassador, by Sir Dudley Digges, p. 314. 2 Mary to La Mothe Fe'ndlon, Feb. 20, 1573-74— Labanoff. 3 Ibid. p. 117. MARY STUAET. 205 my physician, conformable to the memorandum from his nephew, and received my carnation satin and the pound of silver thread, together with a letter from you, dated Feb- ruary 24th, by which I have been very glad to see that the Queen my good sister is less irritated against me. . . . And if Monsieur de Burleigh would do so much for a poor prisoner," she pathetically adds, " as to obtain for me the opportunity of defending myself from what has been im- puted to me, so that the Queen and her faithful servants would be able either to reprehend me for my fault or to acknowledge my innocence, I should be infinitely obliged •to him, and it would be performing an equitable office for me ; or if they would name my accusers to you, and permit you to communicate the same to me, I could clearly prove to thera the wrong they have done me." She thus men- tions her pecuniary necessities : " I am in great want of money, not so much for myself as for my servants, who begin to cry out for their wages, some of them being burdened with children, others sick, and all in need. Un- less my coffers from France arrive soon, I shall be badly off myself ; and if you cannot get leave to forward them to me, I shall not know what to do I have asked for some preserves for this Lent, of which I have great need ; for the pain in my side has begun to attack me again more sharply than it has done since my return from Buxton." She expresses great pleasure at the reconciliation which she hears had taken place between her kinsmen and the Due de Montmorenci, and hopes it may be lasting. " I have nothing else to tell you," continues the royal captive, " as all my occupation is to read and work in my chamber ; and that being the case, I pray you to take the trouble, in addition to that for which I now return you my thanks, to send me, as soon as you can, four ounces more of the car- nation silk, like the pattern I sent you. The surest way is to get it of the same merchant who furnished the other. The silver thread is too thick ; pray let them choose it as fine as the pattern, and send it to me by the first opportu- nity, with eight ells of carnation taffety. Unless I have 206 MARY STUAET. it soon, I shall be without employment, which I should be sorry for, as it is not for myself I am working." There had been some dispute about a bill for drugs and perfumes, which Mary's comptroller thought had been discharged before, but she, with the liberal and equitable feeling that characterised all her dealings, decided that it should be paid. " I pray you," writes she to La Mothe Tension, " to satisfy the apothecary at whatever price it be ; for I believe him to be an honest man, and I would rather pay twice over than injure or do wrong to any one by suspicion. But advise him for the future not to let them have anything more on ray account without the money, your signature, or my obligation. You see how unceremoniously I employ you about my private business." ^ Her genuine kindness of heart is also testified by the fol- lowing benevolent arrangement to relieve the distress of a very humble individual. " I understand,'' writes she to La Mothe Fen^lon, " that one of the servants of the late Queen my mother, named William Henderson, is detained in London for debts amounting to twenty crowns. I pray you to discharge them for him, and to let him have thirty crowns more to support him till I can help him more effec- tually." 2 In all her letters to the Archbishop of Glasgow, her am- bassador at Paris, Mary manifests the greatest solicitude for the welfare and maintenance of the loyal Scotch exiles and her faithful servants, who had been compelled to leave her by the forcible curtailment of her household band. " I recommend to you,"' she says, " my orphans, Annibal and William Douglas, as you would I should do for those in whom you are interested." She exerts all her influence with the royal family of France to obtain the captaincy of the Scotch Archer Guard for Sir Adam Gordon, who had at one time reduced the greater part of the north of Scotland to her authority, and, nobly rejecting all the proffered bribes of Morton and Elizalseth, was at this time a landless exile, for her sake, in France. One of her old attached French ladies of the bedchamber, ^ Labanoff. ^ Ibid. MAEY STUART. 207 Madame de Rallay, had long been desirous of returning, to share the hardships of her English prison ; and Mary, after many months of fruitless solicitation for a passport to enable her to do so, asks La Mothe Fenelon once more to prefer her petition to Elizabeth for that favour. " I am sure," she says, " if you were to represent the age and vir- tues of that person, it would be found good that I should desire to have her in my household, without any suspicions being entertained that her coming was for any other pur- pose than serving and keeping me company in my chamber, as she has done from my youth." Among other traits of Mary's grateful and benevolent consideration for her old and faithful servants, the following passage from one of her letters to her Ambassador in Paris may be quoted : " Madame de Briante has returned to France, where she will have much business, especially with her brother-in-law, about her dower. If she requires my influence with him or any other person, I pray you to give her all the aid you can, and beg the Cardinal, my uncle, to have her recommended. If she need letters of recommen- dation from him or any of the princes, my kinsmen or friends, you must procure them, with the permission of my uncle ; and as she will require, while soliciting her process, to be in Paris, ask him, for love of me, to allot her a cham- ber or convenient lodgings in one of his houses. She is a good and virtuous lady, an old servant of the Queen my mother." ^ Meanwhile Elizabeth's jealous suspicions of the Earl of Shrewsbury were excited by the incendiary practices of his chaplain Cocker, and another clergyman of the name of Haworth (probably a pair of the intolerant divines whose sermons had served to wean Mary from her passive confor- mity to the worship of the Church of England), they having secretly accused their patron of favouring the title of the Queen of Scots. To this charge, when communicated to him by his friend Burleigh, Shrewsbury indignantly re- plies : " How can it be imagined I should be disposed to favour this Queen for her claim to succeed the Queen's Sheffield, the 13th of November 1574. 208 MARY STUAET. Majesty? My dealing towards her hath shown the con- trary. I know her to be a stranger, a papist, and my enemy. What hope can I have of good of her, either for me or my comitry ? " Then he passionately adds, " that he should think himself most happy to be rid of so weighty and cumbersome a charge, the weight of which had nearly brought him to his grave." ^ Notwithstanding their almost daily jars, Mary did Shrewsbury the justice to believe that he would not, for the honour of his house, suffer any attempts on her life to be made while she was in his keeping ; and expressed her opinion to her uncle Cardinal de Lorraine, that there was a systematic iurtention of piquing him into throwing up his thankless office, that she might be put into the hands of a less scrupulous keeper ; in which case she thought her life would be in imminent peril. Even as it was, she enter- tained great fears of being poisoned, for she writes : " The wretch Eolleston, who betrayed his own father, has been making overtures and suggestions for that purpose, and been heard to say, ' that if it could be done without the knowledge of the Queen [Elizabeth], he knew it would be a good thing to remove the cause of so much trouble and uneasiness."' ^ Mary complains, in her letters to La Mothe F^n^lon, of her old malady, pain in the side and rheumatism, and ex- presses her earnest desire that supplication might be made for her to be permitted to visit Buxton again, with leave to remain there for three weeks. " I protest before God," she says, " that I have no other motive for this, save the recovery of my health ; and if they are so wicked as to persuade her [Queen Elizabeth] to the contrary, in order to make her reckless of the preservation of my life, I pray you to request her to send some one to see if I have not need of it, and to prescribe what rules it pleases her for me to observe there. If you could obtain that benefit for me," continues the anxious invalid, " only for this year, I promise * Lodge, vol. ii. p. 37. - LabanofF, vol. iv. p. 127.— Mary to the Cardinal de Lorraine, and Archbishop Baton, March 20, 1574. MARY STUART. 209 never to importune you any more about it, even if I re- main where I now am for the rest of my days." '- Our fair readers will perhaps be desirous of learning what use the captive Queen, who had so long persisted in wearing the dule-weed for Darnley, made of the carnation, satin, and taflfety, and the delicate silver thread she commissioned the French Ambassador to procure for her in Paris ; and sorry we are to record that it was intended for the decoration of the magnificent and present-loving Queen Elizabeth, whose hard heart, she had heard, and fondly believed, was to be mollified by propitiatory otferings of the kind. " I pray you," writes she to La Mothe F^nelon, " to present to the Queen of England, on my part, a specimen of my work, which you will receive by the carrier in a little case sealed with my seal, and that you will request her to take it in good part as a token of the respect I bear her, and the desire I feel to employ myself in something that may be agreeable to her. You will apologise for the faults if you please," she playfully adds, " by taking some part of them on yourself, as you are not a good chooser of silver thread." The following particulars of the present, and its recep- tion, are communicated by this most obliging of ambas- sadors in his official report to his own Sovereign, Charles IX. " The Queen of Scotland, your sister-in-law, is well ; and. Sire, yesterday I presented from her to the Queen of England a hasquinne^ of carnation satin, very elaborately worked with silver, all wrought and tissued by her own hand. The Queen of England received the present very agreeably ; she thought it very beautiful, and prized it much ; and it appears to me that she is greatly softened towards the Queen of Scotland." Elizabeth would not, for all that, grant Mary's earnest 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 159. ^ The basquinna was a Spanish garment, being an elegant modification between a cloak and a robe, and, when worn with the mantilla or scarf- veil, formed as complete an envelope as the Turkish out-door female garb ; not, however, formed of gaudy-coloured satin and silver, but of rich, plain, black silk. The whole costume was probably derived from the Arab ladies naturalised in Spain. VOL. VII. O 210 MARY STUART. entreaty to be permitted to pass only three weeks at Buxton during the proper season. All the favour vouchsafed was permitting the coffers with her money, and various little ai'ticles which had been procured for her in Finance, to be sent after they had been opened and examined, and the letters addressed to her by her relations read by Burleigh and Walsingham. She condescended, however, graciously to accept some of her sweetmeats, at which poor Mary expresses great pleasure, and, with childlike simplicity, promises to write to her Chancellor, Dn Vergler, for a fresh supply.^ That these sort of offerings were well taken by Elizabeth, we learn from the pen of the man who knew her mind better than any other. " The Queen's Majesty," writes Leicester to Shrewsbury, " has seemed of late to receive such tokens as that Queen has sent her very kindly, and has so showed to the Ambassador, and it seems, ere it be long, . that she will send some token unto her again, and so has her Highness said also to the said Ambassador." Elizabeth contented herself with talking of this ; for there is no rea- son to believe she ever made her professions good. It was not presents Mary wanted, but an amelioration of her hard treatment, leave to take air and exercise, and to receive tidings of her only child. About this time we find the bereaved mother endeavouring to beguile the tedium of her prison, and appease the fond instincts of maternity, by bestowing her cherishing care on the nurture of domestic pets, such as birds and dogs. " I pray you," writes she to the Archbishop of Glasgow, " to obtain for me some turtles and Barbary doves, to see if I can bring them up in this country (as your brother tells me might be done by feeding them in a cage like your red partridges). Send some one from London to instruct me in it. I should take pleasure in feeding them in a cage, as I do all the little birds I can find. These are pastimes for a prisoner." ^ In another letter she says : " If the Cardinal de Guise, my uncle, is gone to Lyons, I am sure he will send me a couple of pretty little dogs ; and you must buy me two more, for, besides writing and work, I take pleasure only in all the little ani- ' Mary to Elizabeth, June 9, 1574. « Labanofif, vol. iv. p. 183. MARY STUART. 211 raals I can get. You must send them in baskets, for them to be kept very warm." ^ Again she writes : " Do not for- get, as you are so often at Lyons, to send my little dogs." It was well for this unfortunate Princess that she could occasionally abstract her thoughts from her wrongs, her cala- mities, and personal sufferings, to take pleasure in trifles. She desires to have Jean de Compiegne, her tailor at Paris, sent over to her with patterns of dresses, and of cloth of gold and silver, and silks, the handsomest and rarest that are worn at Court, to take her orders. "Let me have made at Poissy," continues she, " two caps with crowns of gold and silver, such as were made for me formerly, and remind Beton of his promise to procure for me from Italy some of the newest fashions of head-gear, veils, and ribbons, with gold and silver. I will reimburse him for the outlay. Remember the birds about which I wrote to you in my last, and communicate the contents of this letter to my uncles, and beg them to let me have a share of some of the new things which fall to them, the same as my cousins ; for though I do not wear such myself, they will be put to a better purpose ; " — she meant as propitiatory offerings to Queen Elizabeth, in the hope of procuring better treatment for herself and her servants. Among the memorandums in her letters to the Archbishop of Glasgow, for the distribution of pensions from her French dower-rents, she notes, " Servais de Conde, an old and faith- ful servant, has complained to me of being forgotten in the estimates for several years ; I desire that he and his wife may be placed at the head of the list. In the mean time, I have given him an order for money, which I beg you will see is paid to him." She also requests " that old Curie," another ancient servant, the father of her secretary, Gilbert Curie, " might be supplied with a pension at her expense, to assist him in bringing up his motherless children.'' Her French secretary, Roullet, had been for several months in a dying state, incapable of performing the duties of his office, but at the same time so jealous of any other person assisting either in reading or writing her 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 229. I 212 MAEY STUAET. i ciphered correspondence, as to cause her much trouble and vexation. Sometimes she got a little help in this way j from Andrew Beton, the master of her household, but very \ secretly, lest it should increase the irritation of poor Roullet, who had conceived a bitter hatred against his brother, the | Archbishop of Glasgow, for having sent her a new set of ■ ciphers, which were not to his mind ; whereupon he wrote . to Cardinal de Lorraine, making such offensive observa- j tions on the Archbishop as to cause annoyance on the part { of that faithful minister, which Mary had some trouble ' in appeasing. "Eoullet," observes she, ^ "is a faithful j servant, and well understands his duties ; but being sick, j suspicious, and peevish, he could not remain at peace a . day with any one at present. He sent two or three times I for me to make his will, and then did nothing but make ; childish complaints to me of the servants, how they had ^ been corrupted, and had robbed him. One day he drives | them away, another he would kill them, then he takes his j cloak and sword and would go and walk, but being inca- | pable of it, lies him down again. In fine, he is too ill to ; write himself, and always jealous of any one writing for me ■. without him, which I have not done yet, save a word or two ! in my last letter, which he has not seen, and this, whereof he knows nothing ; for he would make more quarrels about it, and that would take up too much of my time, and we should have some fresh dispute before they were settled. It is pity he should thus afflict himself. Once a month he thinks he is going to die, affronts all those who compas- | sionate him, and picks quarrels about nothing. He has i twice demanded a passport to leave me, but afterwards ' took to his bed. I wish to have some one here to help me, j for he writes nothing, nor has for the last year, but about | his own quarrels ; perhaps he might then recover his I health." A hopeless matter that, however, for she goes on j to say : " His complaint is pulmonary, the physician says, i but he has other maladies of long standing. He has taken j offence with the said doctor, and for more than a year ' Mary Stuart to Beton, Archbishop of Glasgow. From Sheffield, undated — Labanoff, vol. iv., p. 210. ; i I I j 1 MAEY STUAKT. 213 would have none of his advice, or anything to do with hirn. The illness is incurable ; and he is so impatient and suspi- cious that every one in turn is constrained to leave him. I dare not let him know anything of this despatch, so be pleased to answer it separately/' Charles IX. departed this life in the preceding May, but it was several weeks before the French Ambassador was permitted by Elizabeth to obey the instructions of his own Court, by sending a ceremonial announcement of that event from his new Sovereign, Henry III., to Mary, to whom that mark of attention was due both as lawful Sovereign of Scot- land and Queen-Dowager of France. " I have grieved much for the death of the late King/' writes she to the Archbishop of Glasgow, " but I place no less hope in this. I know not how he may proceed now, but he used to be the brother-in-law who loved me the best of all." 1 His affection for her had exceeded that of fra- ternal regard. He had been a suitor for her hand before her marriage with Darnley. Since her widowhood he had more than once openly declared his preference for her, though entangled by his ambitious mother in a matrimo- nial treaty with Elizabeth. After his election to the throne of Poland, he had conferred with Cardinal de Lorraine on the subject of procuring a dispensation from the Pope to enable him to marry her, and it was reported that, since his accession to that of France, he had again spoken of their union. There were also rumours, at the same time, in circulation in regard to three other candidates for Mary's hand, a son of the Emperor {query, the Archduke Rodolph), Don John of Austria, and the Earl of Leicester.^ She tells the Archbishop of Glasgow "that her friends have communi- cated with her secretly on these subjects, and besought her not to engage herself to any one in England for fear of en- dangering her life." They had informed her withal, " that the Emperor s son made the fairest offers for her." The Spanish agent had written to her, " entreating her not to be too hasty in her decision, either in regard to the proposals that might be made to her in England, or by the new King ^ Labanofij vol. iv, p. 210. * Ibid., p. 202. 214 MAEY STUAET, of France ; but if she would wait three months, he could promise her very comfortable news from his own Court." 1 These matrimonial projects, whereof the afflicted and desti- tute captive was the object, appear not on the surface of the abridged and fragmentary lives of that Princess which have hitherto been given to the world ; but Roman Catholic Europe regarded her as the rightful Sovereign of the Bri- tannic Empirej from sea to sea, while Elizabeth's unpo- pular marriage-treaty with the Duke of Alen^on offended those of the Reformed Church, without conciliating the adherents of the ancient faith. Leicester, at any rate, sus- pecting that his influence over his royal mistress was wholly superseded, scrupled not to provide for his own aggrandisement, by renewing his suit to the rival Queen. ^ A curious picture of the internal factions that divided the Court of Elizabeth at that time is thus sketched by the lively pen of the captive Mary : ^ " You know there are three factions in this realm, one of the Puritans, in favour of Huntingdon " (the representative of George Duke of Cla- rence), " which is secretly supported by Leicester ; another by Burleigh for Hertford (the father of Lady Katharine Gray's sons) ; " and the third of the poor Catholics. This Queen is opposed to all three, and places her chief reliance on Hatton, Walsingham, and a few others of their particular set ; and she sometimes says, ' that she would like to return, after her death, to see the murders, quarrels, and divisions in this country ; for,' continues she, 'Leicester flatters Hertford, and holds with his brother-in-law' (Huntingdon), ' and the others would like to be rid of me ; but if the third comes,' speaking [Mary explains] of myself, ' she will make many heads fly ;' and on this tries to persuade Hatton ' neither to buy land nor build houses, for that he will not be allowed to survive her.' Meantime, Leicester entreats Monsieur de la Mothe to assure me that ' he is entirely for me,' and has told him that he intends to make me a proposal of marriage, and to try and gain Walsingham, my mortal enemy, in favour of it. Burleigh wrote very honourably of ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 202. Ibid. p. 199. * Letter to Archbishop Beton — Labanoff. MARY STUART. 215 me, when he thought it would come to my ears, protesting that he would not suffer, like others (he means Leicester), ' evil to be spoken of me, being the nearest relation to his Queen, and one whom he desires to honour, as long as I do no injury to his mistress.' Meanwhile, Bedford solicits to have the charge of me, which proceeds from Leicester, as he has even had me told, in order to persuade me to go there. I know not what will come of it, but they have little confidence in each other, and great fear of the present King of France." In a ciphered letter which she encloses for her uncle Cardinal de Lorraine, Mary is more explicit. She says: " My life is always sought, though they allow me to rest till this feast of St Michael, in the hope that the indisposition of my keeper may give them a fresh excuse for placing me with Bedford, a man without fear of God or honour, and en- tirely devoted to the Puritans. If I once see myself in his hands, I may be sure of death. I have not leisure to show you my certainty of his intention, but will by the first convenient opportunity. Meantime, Monsieur de la Mothe advises me to entreat you, my cousin Guise, and my lady grandmother, to write some complimentary letters to Lei- cester, thanking him for his courtesy to me, as if he did much for me, and to send him by the same messenger a handsome present, which would do me much good. He takes great pleasure in his furniture, so you might send hira a crystal vase in your own name, which I would pay for, or a beautiful Turkey carpet, or anything you might find better for that purpose. It might, perhaps, be the means of pre- serving my life this winter, by inducing him from shame to act better. For it is his intention, they say, either to make me consent to a marriage with him, or to have me slain, ^ so that either he or his brother-in-law may enjoy this ci own." It is certainly a curious study to trace Leicester's serpen- tine policy in regard to the captive heiress of the realm, after he had ceased to be the reigning favourite of the Sovereign, beginning with his treacherous attempt to sup- plant Norfolk, while Mary was in the hands of his brother- ^ LabanofF, vol. iv. p. 206. 216 MARY STUAET. in law, Huntingdon, at Coventry, and ending with his malig- nant proposal for her to be taken off by poison, when he found she was resolved never to become his wife. Another of Elizabeth's favourites, the Earl of Oxford, who had married and deserted Burleigh's daughter, to continue what Lady Burleigh, with maternal jealousy, considered improper attentions to his royal mistress, had, on his passionate intercessions for the preservation of his friend Norfolk's life (whom he loved better than any one in the world) being rejected by his father-in-law and the Queen, cut the whole connection, abandoned the court, and re- tired to the Continent. He must have previously found some means of entering into secret intelligence with Mary ; for she makes the following remarkable mention of him to her ambassador at Paris, the Archbishop of Glasgow : "If the Earl of Oxford arrive there, inform my cousin of Guise that he is one of the greatest nobles in this country, a Catholic, and a secret friend ; and beg him to give him a good reception. He is a frolicsome young man, and will enter freely into all the sports of youth. I entreat my cousin and his brothers to show him every attention ; to present him with some horses, invite him to share their amusements, and entertain him well, for my sake." ^ During the latter part of the summer of 1574 ^ project was devised by Mary for having her son privily stolen out of Morton's hands, and carried from Stirling to Dumbarton, embarked for Flanders, and consigned to the care of the King of Spain for education, and married to one of the young daughters of that monarch by 'iis late queen, Eliza- beth of France. The acting agent in this design was George Douglas, who came secretly to Scotland, and re- mained there perdue for several months, vainly watching a favourable moment for putting it into execution. The young Prince had completed his eighth year in the preceding J une ; and his precocious intellect and acquire- ments astonished every one who had had the opportunity of seeing and hearing him. He was described by one of his 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 206. MAEY STUAET. 217 literary subjects as " the sweetest sight in Europe for extra- ordinary gifts of ingyne [genius], judgment, memory, and language. I heard him discourse," continues this writer,^ " walking up and down in the auld Lady Mar's hand, of knowledge and ignorance, to my great marvel and aston- ishment." The barbarous manner in which the spirit of that hopeful boy was crushed by the malignant libeller of his hapless mother is well known. No wonder Mary was anxious to liberate her child from the control of a brutal tyrant, who was, by a system of insult and intimidation, labouring to destroy every manifestation of the manly and courageous spirit necessary to enable him to fulfil the high vocation to which he was born. Mary's faithful French secretary, Roullet, died at Sheffield Castle on the 30th of August, so suddenly, she says, " that when I sent to inquire after him, as I did every morning, he was breathing his last. He has left the five thousand crowns, I had given him, to me."^ Shrewsbury entered the chamber of the deceased secretary as soon as he had expired, and seized the keys of his coffers, thinking to find something among his papers that might lead to important discoveries. Mary indignantly protested against this arbit- rary proceeding as an intolerable outrage, and bade her keeper " look that he had good warrant for what he did, for answer it he should."' Proud words, which she was powerless to make good. Nothing was found of the slightest consequence. Shrewsbury suspected that Mary had taken care to burn or withdraw all papers of a sus- picious tendency before Roullet's death. ^ That faithful servant was interred in Sheffield Church on the 4th of Sep- tember.* Being now destitute of a secretary for her foreign corre- spondence, Mary requested her uncle Cardinal de Lorraine to engage some gentleman acquainted with the duties of such an office, of incorruptible principles, and of a placid, obliging temper, to serve her in that capacity. " The quali- fication of good temper," she declared, "was essential to her ' Sir James Melville. * Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 216. 3 Lodge — Shrewsbury to Walsingbam, Sheffield, August 31, 1574. * Hunter's Hallamshire. 218 MARY STUAliT. own peace, and that of her household, where all were sub- jected to prison restraints, and confined within their own narrow little sphere, which rendered it expedient for them to be on friendly terms with each other; whereas, in con- sequence of poor Roullet's testiness and choleric disposition, there had been nothing but affronts, jealousies, and disputes for the last year, and nothing was so distressing to her as quarrels/' Cardinal de Lorraine believed he complied with all these requisitions when he sent her his own private secretary Jacques, or, as he is sometimes called, Joseph Nau, the younger brother of her old faithful counsellor Claud Nau, Sieur de Fontenaye. After a delay of seven or eight months, Queen Elizabeth was induced to accord a passport to this gentleman : she did more, for she gave him also a warrant recommending him as a fit person to serve the Queen of Scotland in the capacity of secretary.^ We find Mary wasting her time and consuming money, which she required for other purposes, in preparing or pur- chasing elegant and costly offerings for Queen Elizabeth this summer and autumn. " If my uncle the Cardinal/' writes she to the Archbishop of Glasgow, " would send me something pretty, such as bracelets or a mirror, I would give them to this Queen, for they have informed me that it is expedient for me to make her presents. If you find anything new, buy it for me, and request a passport for a person to bring it over. Perhaps in order to have it, this Queen will allow some one to come to me ; if so, the letters that are written to me must be sent open, explaining that they concern a token from me to the Queen of England, which must first be delivered to me for my approval ; and if my uncle would compose some device between her and me, such trifles would serve to wile away the time better than anything else." 2 Poor Mary, what a miserable resource for a mind like hers ! It seems she fondly built hopes on this sandy founda- tion, and hope was the great necessity of her desolate heart, without which she could not have worn away so many years of misery ! On the subject of her religious exercises she ^ Ellis's Royal Letters, vol. ii. p. 270. ^ Labanoff. vol. v. MAEY STUAET. 219 mentions a book of prayers called " The Hours," which she desires to have procured "for the use of her little flock but because prayers in the vernacular tongue had been lately prohibited, by the misjudging Council of Trent, she was doubtful whether she might be permitted to have that manual in French for her servants. " As to myself," ob- serves she, " God be thanked I have still enough Latin left for the purpose of prayer." Anxious, however, for the spiri- tual comfort of those, not so learned as herself, who were sharing her captivity, yet fearing to act in the slightest degree in opposition to the dictum of her church, she desires the nuncio to be consulted; " and entreat my uncle," con- tinues she, "to ordain us some prayers that may be said after the office by my household, for no one can pray without that. We have no other religious exercise than reading the ser- mons of Monsieur Picard, to which we assemble ourselves. It v/ill be alms to us, prisoners, to give us a rule, for we have as much leisure here as if monastics. Forget not to make my humble commendations to my lady grandmother, and thank her very humbly for the kind remembrance it has pleased her to have of me in her prayers and holy exercises, and let me know whether the chaplet imprinted by the command of my uncle, that she sent me, is also prohibited." Mary mentions her want of money at this time to pay her servants and relieve the pecuniary distresses of the loyal Scotch exiles who had sacrificed lands and livings for her sake. The English refugees in Flanders were also a per- petual drain on her resources; and she, feeling it impossible to refuse the appeals that were made to her charity from those who pleaded attachment to her cause as the source of their distress, gave money-orders beyond her ability of answering them, and thus burdened herself with debts. Her French officers and lawyers took advantage of her hopeless captivity in England to let her farms, as the leases fell, at reduced rents, in consideration of the fees and bribes they received. ^ Even her beloved uncle. Cardinal de Lorraine, served his own interest instead of paying fatherly attention to hers, by giving away lucrative offices and 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 138-140. 220 MARY STUART. appointments to his friends and political allies, which she had intended to appropriate to her faithful Scotch emigrants. No one can read without compassion her remarks on the mismanagement of her property;^ while, at the same time, it is surprising to observe how clear and intelligent a view she takes of matters which, from their complicated nature, must have been perplexing to any lady, much more to a Queen who had been accustomed to have proper officials to arrange her accounts. The Court of France was equally busy and unscrupulous in the disposal of benefices and im- munities which were in her gift. This Mary regarded as an infringement on her dignity, as well as an invasion of her property, and she instructs her ambassador at the Court of France, Beton, Archbishop of Glasgow, " to require in her name, of the new King and the Queen-mother, that they would respect her rights in these matters, and not allow her to be circumvented and forestalled in her appointments, any more than other queen-dowagers who had been previously jointured in those domains she now held, but that they might be left to her free disposal ; and she hopes the King will show her some favour as the most affectionate of sisters-in- law, and the widow of the brother who loved him best of all." She also desires to be commended to the remembrance of the King of Navarre, among others of her kinsmen and friends, and sends two squares of her work as a little token of her affection to her uncle Cardinal Guise. " They have formed," she says, " part of my occupation." In the month of October, the gloomy monotony of Shef- field Castle was broken by a love-match between Lord Charles Lennox, brother of the unfortunate Darnley, and fair Mistress Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of the Countess of Shrewsbury, by her favourite husband, Sir William Cavendish. As Lord Charles Lennox was the next in the line of the regal succession, after Mary and her son, Elizabeth was highly exasperated at his having dared to marry without her knowledge or sanction; and though it was clearly against Mary's interest to promote any marriage that might possibly be the means of multiplying rival heirs i.LabanoffjVol. iv. p. 142-144. MARY STUART. 221 to the Crown of England, she spoke of her with great bitter- ness, as a party to the treason, for in that light she thought proper to regard it, and committed both Lady Lennox, the mother of the bridegroom, and Lady Shrewsbury, the mother of the bride, as prisoners to the Tower. She would doubtless have sent Mary thither also, had she not regarded Sheffield Castle as a far worse place of incarceration, and dreaded exciting the sympathies of the people in behalf of the captive heiress of the Crown, by bringing her to the metropolis. Elizabeth's principal cause of displeasure was the reconciliation which had taken place between Mary and the Countess of Lennox. In a peculiarly interesting letter from the captive Queen to her faithful ambassador at Paris, written about this epoch, we trace the confidential relations then subsisting between her and the Countess of Lennox, whose, arrest and incarceration in the Tower put a stop to the design of ab- ducting the little King of Scotland from bis nursery palace at Stirling, and transporting him to the Continent for the safety of his person, both Mary and his grandmother, Lady Lennox, believing his life to be in imminent danger while he was in the hands of his father's murderer Morton. " The transport of my son on advantageous conditions," writes Mary, " I much desire, but the proper time for it has not arrived, for my mother-in-law [Lady Lennox] is in trouble, and suspected of having made the marriage of her son [Lord Charles Lennox], through the persuasion of his servant Francois, who is also a prisoner, accused of having been sent by the late King [Charles IX. of France] for that purpose, yet God knows he is a great Huguenot. Fowler is also prisoner, and has been exa- mined whether he had anything to do with Ross, Kilsyth, or any of the other ambassadors. Their suspicions are so ill-founded that I hope they will lead to nothing. As to me, I have been advised to write to this Queen to excuse myself, which I have done, but I have not as yet been answered." ^ La Mothe Fenelon, after communicating to his Sovereign, ^ Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 258. 222 MARY STUAET. Henrj III. of France, the gratification which Mary had expressed at the receipt of an affectionate letter from him, compassionately observesj — " I believe the consolation caused by the advent of your letters to this poor Princess will be imputed to you as a great work of charity before God, and that it will be an especial recommendation to all sovereign princes, and all good people throughout the earth. She is so subjected to calumnies, and her euemies are so prompt in attributing to her all the ills and dis- orders which happen in this realm, that they have even persuaded this Queen [Elizabeth] that she is the cause of the marriage between Charles, Earl of Lennox, and Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the Countess of Shrewsbury, and that she had leagued the Duchess of Suffolk and the Countess of Lennox with the sa;id Countess of Shrewsbury, to do many things for her in this realm ; now, then, on the contrary, she, the Queen of Scotland, fears more than anything in the world, that from the col- leaguing together of these three ladies (of whom two have been always her decided enemies), she is above all convinced that it will lead to her being roughly torn from the keeping of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and consigned to those whom she suspects seek her death. On which she writes to me that she has recourse, as your sister-in-law and principal ally of your blood, to the protection of your Majesty, that in case they mean to put her in suspicious hands, she supplicates you will oppose it, and protest that you will have her life preserved, or that you will revenge her death or any wrong and injury offered to her ; and this is the support that she justly hopes from your Crown." ' Mary herself expresses, in her ciphered letter to Cardinal de Lorraine, her apprehension that what had just occurred would be made a pretext for consigning her to the charge of a less scrupulous jailer. " My good uncle/' writes she, " if you could know the afflictions, troubles, and alarms I have every day, you would pity me, even if I were not your poor daughter and niece. I have dreaded for the last two months being put into the hands of Huntingdon, who seeks ray death by every means, without my having done any- thing to offend him ; and now you may see by the letter to my ambassador the peril I am in of being dislodged with- out any fault of mine." ^ She then, alluding to her restless desire of getting her son out of Scotland, exclaims : " Would to God you held him ! What you say is true, that they make much suit for him in various quarters. I. would rather he were at school than married either in the one place or 1 Despatches of La Mothe Fenelon, vol. vi. p. 299. ^ LabanofF, vol. iv. p. 232. MARY STUART. 223 the other, if I were not at liberty." She pleads earnestly to the wealthy but selfish ecclesiastic for pecuniary assist- ance, assuring hira that if her relations could make up a round sum among them, it would stand her in good stead at that particular time, if she remained where she then was; but if transferred into the unfriendly keeping she dreaded, her need of money would be still more urgent. " My means,'' she says, " are very small ; seeing, too, the great charge that falls on me of the exiles from the isles of Britain.''^ The supply of sweetmeats which Mary had sent for from France having arrived, the French Ambassador presented half of them, by Mary's desire, to Elizabeth, in her name, in a private audience, and made what was called " assaye of them," for her satisfaction, by tasting them in her presence. Nevertheless Mary's enemies endeavoured to persuade Eliza- beth that they were poisoned. When his Excellency heard of this insinuation, he was greatly hurt, and entreated the Queen not to eat them ; but Elizabeth graciously replied, " that since he had taken assaye she could have no dis- trust, and had tasted them, and found them very good." She added, " that she owed the Queen of Scots a token, but delayed it because there was a report that the King of France intended to press for her liberation, and to espouse her quarrel;" sarcastically observing, "that the present year, she supposed, would be counted the first of the reign of the Guisars." The Ambassador waited on Elizabeth again on the 2d of January, at Hampton Court, to wish her, in his Sovereign's name, " the Good Year!" Then, reports he, " I performed a little mission for the Queen of Scots, by presenting her letter, together with a very beautiful coif of resell, very dehcately worked by the hands of the said Queen, with the collar, sleeves, and other little pieces belonging to the set, all of which were executed as charmingly as possible ;2 and I trust I have put matters on such a pleasant footing between these Queens, that there will be no need to make any remonstrances to ' Labanoff, vol. iv. pp. 233, 234. ^ Forte mignonmente ouvree. Despatch of La Mothe Fenelon, vol. vi., p. 349. The captive Queen seems to have offered the resell head-dress as a uew-year's gift. 224 MARY STUART. the English Ambassador about the change the Queen of Scotland dreaded so much/' Mary made earnest entreaties for a supply of money, in a letter addressed jointly to her ambassador at Paris and her uncle Cardinal de Lorraine. She requires, she says, " five hundred crowns to be handed to La Mothe Fenelon, to pay the expenses incurred by her agents in London, and to purchase things for her use ; and she has immediate need of a thousand crowns to defray her personal liabilities," her credit being at a low ebb even in her own household, and herself subjected to importunities that were most irksome to her high spirit and generous disposition. " Por my ser- vants,'' continues she, " are mutinying at not being paid. If I had the means of obtaining others in their place I would not bear it. If they lack anything here, they pursue me about it even to my bed — disrespect to which I have not been accustomed. They are good and faithful, but carry it with a high hand, and ready to demand their dismissal of me for a straw. I entreat you to relieve me from this an- noyance." For the honour of her devoted Scotch followers, Mary explains, " I speak of those who are not my subjects." ^ Notwithstanding her pecuniary difficulties, she gives the following commissions to her correspondents : " I pray you to have made for me a beautiful golden mirror, to suspend from the girdle, with a chain to hang it by, and have this Queen's cipher and mine engraved on this mirror, with some appropriate device, which the Cardinal my uncle can com- pose. As there are friends in this country who ask for my picture, I pray you to have four executed ; they must be square, and in square frames, of chased gold. Send them to me secretly, and as soon as you can."^ Mary was not aware, when writing this letter on the 9th of January, that the beloved uncle, whom she was wooing to exert his elegant taste and skill in drawing ciphers and devices to propitiate her implacable oppressor, was no longer in existence, having departed this life at Avignon, on the 26th of the preceding December. The mournful tidings did not reach her, in her secluded prison-house among the » Labanoff, vol. iv. pp. 234, 235. ^ Ibid. MARY STUAET. 225 Derbyshire hills, till the middle of February 1575. How' deeply it afflicted her, her own pen bears record in her letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, whom she gently reproaches for not having written to comfort her : " I am much astonished that on so melancholy an occurrence I have neither received information nor consolation from you ; this I attribute to your excessive concern for the loss I have sustained. Yet God be praised that He does not send me afflictions without granting me His grace to support them. Although I cannot, at the present moment, command my feelings, nor restrain these eyes from weeping, my long adversities have taught me to hope for consolation for all ray sorrows in a better life. Alas, I am a prisoner, and God bereaves me of one of the creatures I loved the best. What shall I say more ! He has taken from me at one blow my father and my uncle. I shall follow, when it shall please Him, with the less regret." ^ She pathetically appeals to the traces of the tears that had blotted her paper, in testimony of the distress she felt in writing on this subject, and mourn- fully adds : " I had no need to be told of this afflicting event, for I had a frightful dream of it, from which I awoke with an impression of that which has been too sadly confirmed.^ I pray you to write me the particulars, and if he spake of me in the hour of death, for that would be a consolation to >> me. Mary enjoyed one comfort during the imprisonment of the Countess of Shrewsbury in the Tower. The Earl permitted Mr Hamilton, one of her followers, to visit Scot- 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 267. 2 That Mary Stuart, a Scotswoman by birth and descent, and of a highly imaginative and poetic temperament, should, in her dreary prison-cham- ber, fancy she had a prophetic intimation of the death of the uncle under whose paternal care she had passed her happiest days, is not wonderful ; but a much more marvellous incident connected with that event — which was sudden, unexpected, and as usual under such circumstances, attributed to poison — was related by her Protestant kinsman the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of France : " I was," he said, " alone with the Queen- mother in her closet, reading the psalter with her by her desire, verse by verse alternately, when, looking up, we saw the apparition of the Cardinal de Lorraine, whom we knew to be with the King at Avignon. Neither of us spake, but we both understood from that vision that he was dead ; of which we afterwards received the intelligence."— Sully's Memoirs. VOL. VII. ^ 226 MARY STUART. land, and he had returned, bringing the agreeable intelli- gence which she communicates to La Mothe ¥6n4\on in this brief but joyous sentence : My son loves me much Perhaps when the princely child was unjustly beaten and insulted by his crabbed and tyrannical pedagogue, Lady Mar had been accustomed to console him with the hope of his royal mother's return, to cherish and protect him from the injurious usage to which he was subjected ; and thus affection for her was engendered in his young heart at the very time his name was used by her foes as a war-cry against her. The desire of being loved and remembered in her affliction by the companions of her early days, amounted with Mary to passion. In some of her letters the strong yearnings of her spirit are eloquently expressed ; in others with simple pathos, which is still more touching in its emphatic brevity 5 in that to Anne D'Este, Duchess of Nemours, the widow of her uncle Francis, Duke of Guise, written at this period, she says : " You may judge whether poor prisoners are glad not to be forgotten by their old friends and relations/' ^ The death of the Cardinal de Lorraine was quickly followed by that of the Duke de Chatelherault, another of her adopted fathers, and, on the 25th of February, by that of her much-loved sister-in-law, Claude of France, Duchess of Lorraine, one of the companions of her childhood, who, like all the offspring of Henry IL of France, and his wicked Queen, Catherine de Medicis, died in the flower of youth. Mary's life was in imminent peril from an earthquake, which shook to the very foundation the quarter of Sheffield Castle wherein she was immured. The circumstance is thus communicated by Shrewsbury to Burleigh, without even the affectation of pity for the terror of the helpless Princess, who, within bolted doors, found herself in danger of being buried in the ruins of her prison, without the pos- sibility of saving herself by flight. It seems the report ' LabanofF, vol. iv., p. 265. 2 Ibid., vol. iv. p. 261— January 22, 1578. MARY STUART. 227 was rife that her enfranchisement had been miraculously accomplished. " My lord, where there hath been often bruits of this lady's escape from me, the 26th of February last there came an earthquake, which so sunk, chiefly her chamber, as I doubted more her falling than her going, she was so afraid. But God be thanked she is forthcoming, and grant it may be a forewarning unto her. It hath been at the same instant in sundry places, and the same continued a very small time.'' ^ Shrewsbury expresses thankfulness for being warned that some of his servants were conveyers of letters and messages in the Queen of Scots' behalf, and desires to be informed of their names. " Assured I am/' continues he, " the lady can- not use conference with any man that is mine; neither are my servants permitted to have recourse where she is. If they deal with her people, it is very secretly done, for I am as careful as may be to meet with their doings." Then, submissive as beaten hound, he expresses slavish sorrow at the mislike his gracious sovereign had signified at the liberty he had taken in his own house, by allowing his son Gilbert's wife, the daughter of his better half, the Countess of Shrewsbury — who doubtless had made the arrangement — to be brought to bed there, as causing the resort of women and strangers thither ; " nevertheless," he affirms, " the midwife excepted, none such came in Queen Mary's sight and further, to avoid such resort, he had christened the child himself The love-match contracted by Henry III. of France, with her cousin Louise of Lorraine Yaudemont, gave Mary great pleasure, and infused new hopes of succour in her desponding mind ; while Elizabeth, who suspected that the influence of the royal bride would be exerted for that pur- pose, and was besides offended that the handsome young monarch, who had once been a suitor for her own hand, should marry a portionless kinswoman of the captive Queen of Scots, could not restrain her jealousy from being appa- rent to the French Ambassador, who delayed, in conse- ^ Lodge, vol. ii. pp. 50, 51. MAEY STUART. quence of this acerbity, executing the commission he had un- dertaken, of presenting three nightcaps to her from the Queen of Scots, worked by the skilful and industrious hands of that unfortunate Princess. The juncture was, as he apprehended, unfavourable when he tendered these offerings to the accep- tance of the maiden Queen, Elizabeth protested she could not possibly receive them, but placed her scruples on politi- cal grounds. " He would be startled," she said, " if he knew what people had invented touching her acceptation of the presents he had previously delivered to her from the Queen of Scots, for it was pretended that the Queen of Scots had obtained a promise from her to reinstate her by force, and that they had sent mutual pledges to each other. Letters to that effect had been written into Scotland by inimical persons/' ^ The ambassador replied, " that those who wrote thus acted according to their malignant nature, not considering that her heart was too generous to contemn another Queen her kinswoman, whatever misfortunes had befallen her, nor yet to disdain the little works she had wrought with her own hands as testimonials of her good will." After a few more flattering expressions, he succeeded in inducing her to receive the nightcaps, which he feared at first would have been left on his hands. When Elizabeth condescended to accept the gift, she facetiously bade him remind the Queen of Scots that, " as she had been some years longer in the world, she had learned that people, as they advanced in life, were accustomed to receive with both hands, but to give with only one finger." This was a principle on which Elizabeth invariably acted. Mary, however, whose propensity for making presents amounted to a passion, did not send her pretty offerings to her rich and powerful kinswoman under the fallacious idea of re- ceiving their value with interest in the way of a return, but in the hope of obtaining better treatment ; and so far she was successful, that she was this summer permitted to visit Buxton again, and to spend the months of June and July there. She derived, as before, great benefit from the use of the tepid waters and the bath. ' Despatches of La Mothe Fdnelon, March 11, 1575. I(IARY STUART. 229: One person, and one alone, not included in the Eaii of Shrewsbury's household, presumed to resort to Buxton Wells while Mary was there, and that was Lord Bur- leigh himself, who came for the ostensible purpose of making trial of the waters for the relief of his crippled feet and chronic gout ; perhaps also with the intention of keeping a sharp look-out on the proceedings of his friend Shrewsbury, lest undue access of the Roman Catholic gentry to the captive heiress of the Crown should be permitted in that lonely eyrie among the mountains. If so, he must have been the more deeply mortified when he learned that Queen Ehzabeth suspected that his mo- tive in visiting Buxton was to practise the wisdom of the unjust steward, by ingratiating himself with Mary at the expense of his duty to her. She sent a peremptory order for him to return ; and in a transport of jealous indignation accused him, scarcely less vehemently than she had formerly done the enamoured Norfolk, of disloyal intrigues with the Scottish Queen. ^ " It is over-true, and over-much against reason," writes Burleigh to Shrewsbury, " that upon my being at Bux- ton last, advantage was sought by some, that loved me not, to confirm in her Majesty a former conceit, which had been laboured to put in her head, that I was of late time become friendly to the Queen of Scots, and that I had no disposition to encounter her practices ; and now, at my being at Buxton last, her Majesty did directly conceive that my being there was, by means of your lordship and my lady, to enter into intelligence with the Queen of Scots, and hereof, at my return to her Majesty's presence, I had very sharp reproofs for my going to Buxton, with plain charging me for favouring the Queen of Scots, and that in so earnest a sort as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to her Majesty, but specially knowing how contrariously the Queen of Scots conceived of me for many things past." After protesting his attachment to Elizabeth, he observes: " That he has been represented as the most dangerous enemy and evil-willer to the Queen of Scots, on the one ^ Lodge, vol. ii. p. 54. 230 MAEY STUART. side, and, on the other, that he is also a secret well-willer to her and her title, and had made his party good with her." The altered tone in which Mary in her letters speaks of Burleigh, and her frequent applications to him for various little services, give reason to believe that the politic states- man had availed himself of their mutual sojourn at Bux- ton Well to establish himself on more friendly terms with her, the heiress-presumptive of the realm, than he had hitherto been. From the mention of Lady Shrewsbury in Burleigh's letter as one of the parties through whom he was suspected of obtaining access to the Queen of Scots, it is apparent that she had accompanied her lord and his royal charge in order to do the honours and superintend the domestic economy of the Old Hall, during their visit to Buxton. She was released from the Tower this spring, and Shrewsbury had considered it necessary to inquire, with all due caution and humility, on her home-coming, whether it were his Sove- reign lady's pleasure for her to be permitted to asso- ciate with the Queen of Scots. To this query, which had been propounded through the medium of his friend Leicester, the following gracious answer was communicated to the anxious husband : " And touching one part of your letter sent lately to me, about the access of my lady your wife to the Queen there, I find the Queen's Majesty well pleased that she may repair at all times, and not forbear the com- pany of that Queen, having not only very good opinion of my lady's wisdom and discretion, but thinks how con- venient it is for that Queen to be accompanied and pass the time rather with my lady than meaner persons."^ Thus we see Bess of Hardwicke had succeeded in re- establishing herself in the confidence of her Sovereign lady, which Shrewsbury feared she had utterly forfeited by her maternal ambition in presuming to match her daughter with a person so closely allied to the royal succession as ^ Letter from Leicester to Shrewsbury, May 1, no date of year — Lodge, vol. ii. p. 7 4. MARY STUART. 231 Lord Charles Lennox. That offence had entailed upon her, and the mother of the bridegroom, Margaret Countess of Lennox, the despotically-inflicted penalty of several months' incarceration in the Tower. It was during this imprisonment that the Countess of Lennox made and suc- ceeded in safely transmitting to her royal daughter-in-law, Mary Stuart, a token of her atfection, which is thus described in the inventory of fondly-hoarded relics that were torn from the captive Queen at Chartley ten years afterwards, — " Un 'petit quarre fait d point tresse ouvre par la vielle Gomtesse de Lennox elle estant in la Tour." ^ In plain English, " a little square of hair-point worked by the old Countess of Lennox while in the Tower ; " a relic which must be regarded of no ordinary historic interest, when the relative circumstances of the donor and the recipient are considered, and the fact explained, that '•'■poifit tresse'' is a very delicate and costly species of point lace, worked with hair of silvery hue and silken quality, mixed with extremely fine flax thread. It was very difficult to make, and the art has long been for- gotten. " Point tresse" is, however, well known to the an- tiquarian collectors of the lace and needlework of the six- teenth century, and may occasionally be met with on the Continent, where, on account of its extreme rarity, it fetches a very high price. It may be detected by the glittering of the hair when held up to catch the sunbeams, or if exposed to the test of fire, by frizzing, instead of blazing. The me- lancholy portrait of Margaret, Countess of Lennox, in her widow's dress, at Hampton Court, bears evidence that her hair had become perfectly white, and was, therefore, well suited to be used for the above purpose. Can any one be- lieve that the bereaved mother of the murdered Darnley would violate the powerful instincts of maternity, by occu- pying her prison hours, and straining the eyes which had wept so many tears for his tragic fate, in working point- lace with her sorrow-bleached hair for his widow, unless ' Inventoire de differentes Broderies et Ouvrages de Marie Stuart, Chart- ley, le 18 Juillet, 1586— Labanoff, vol. vii. ; Supplement, p. 240. 232 MAEY STUART. she had been fully satisfied — satisfied beyond the possibility of one lingering doubt — not only of the innocence of that much calumniated Princess of his murder, but also of her irreproachable conduct as his wife? It could have been no light or inconclusive testimony which had produced so re- markable a change in Lady Lennox's feelings since the time when, deceived by the specious practices of the con- trivers and executors of that mysterious tragedy, she had knelt and besought Elizabeth to avenge her on the fugitive Queen of Scots, for whose blood she had thirsted with the ferocity of a bereaved tigress. To what then are we to at- tribute a revulsion of feeling so extraordinary as the tran- sition from vindictive fury against her captive daughter-in- law, to the love and reverence she expresses for her in her letter written from Hackney on the 6th of November 1575, the same year she had worked the '•'•'point tresse" during her imprisonment in the Tower as a token of affec- tion for Mary ? ^ As long as the Earl of Lennox lived, justice to Mary was out of the question, for it was not to his interest to ex- pose the fallacy of the pretext, under colour of which Eliza- beth detained her in prison, while he governed and plpn- dered Scotland in the name of her infant son. But Mar- garet's heart was more accessible, or her moral perceptions more accurate. She had been herself, at various periods of her life, the victim of falsehood and domestic treachery. She had also been occasionally behind the scenes in 1 See the fac-simile of the Holograph letter printed by permission from the original document in the State Paper Office.— Lives of the Queens of Scotland, vol. v. Malcolm Laing, though not aware of the existence of so important a testimonial in Mary's favour as a confidential letter from Darnley's mother, full of affection and respect, has endeavoured to counteract the impression that the discovery of such a document might produce by the paradox that Lady Lennox was not acquainted with the evidences of the murder ! And that in defiance of the fact that her maternal passions had been excited by Elizabeth and her Ministers to the highest possible pitch of exasperation against Mary, of which he could scarcely have been in ignorance, although unconscious that Darnley's servant, Thomas Nelson (who bore false witness against Mary about the bed of figured black velvet, and its pretended ex- change for an old purple one, before the blowing up of the Provost's house at Kirk-of- Field), was, with his wife, in the service of Lady Lennox till her MARY STUART. 233 the councils oF her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and was probably cognisant of the practices of the ruling powers, in the English Government, against her unhappy niece. Her own position in the regal succession gave her a certain degree of influence with the courtiers, and the key to many a secret of state now lost to history. But what- ev^er were the revelations which met her ear or eye, we may be certain that it was no light or inconclusive evi- dence regarding the murderers of her son, that could have induced the mother of Darnley to enter into friendly correspondence with his calumniated widow. Can any- thing be more affectionate or impressive than the sen- tence she addressed to Mary, in that most important letter, where she says, " I beseech your Majesty fear not, but trust in God, that all shall be well ; the treachery of your traitors is known better than before"? Then the hope so kindly and heartily expressed, with a prayer to Almighty God to grant it, that her new-born grand- daughter, Arabella Stuart, Darnley's niece, " may one day serve Mary,^' is of itself sufficient testimony of her esteem ; and we would ask of the most obstinately determined assertor of Mary's guilty passion for Bothwell, if there had been the slightest foundation in reality for that im- putation, whether it were possible for Lady Lennox to " wish her long and happy life," and to subscribe her- self " your Majesty's most humble and loving mother and death. She had, of course, heard what they had to say on a subject so pain- fully interesting to her, and the revulsion in her feelings in regard to Mary leads to the inference that Nelson, appalled by the untimely deaths of Moray, John Wood, Mar, Lennox, Lethington, and Kirkaldy of Grange, had made penitential acknowledgment of his perjury, and relieved his con- science by declaring the innocence of his royal mistress; or that his wife had been unable to keep the secret that he had been tampered with by the English authorities at Berwick. Then it will be remembered that Mary, though she gave all Darnley's servants the option of remaining in her ser- vice, fui-nished them, on their declining to do so, with passports to return to England, which she never would have done if she had acted so as to have reason to apprehend disclosures on their parts to her disadvantage. Although these were all arrested and detained for a considerable time at Berwick, there can be no doubt that sooner or later some, if not all of them, came to the speech of Lady Lennox, in the hope of obtaining her patronage. 234 MARY STUART. aunt " ? 1 What other motive than that of a conscientious desire of atoning for the unjust prejudice she had formerly been deluded into cherishing against her unfortunate daugh- ter-in-law, could Lady Lennox have had for thus address- ing the forlorn, broken-hearted captive, against vs^hom a bill < of attainder had been passed, the penalty of which might any day be inflicted upon her? 1 Margaret Countess of Lennox to Queen Mary— State Paper Office MS., November 6, 1595. See the fac-simile of the document by Netherclift, vol. V. Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses connected ■with the Regal Succession of Great Britain. MARY STUART. CHAPIEB LY. StJMMAEY. Mary requests to be acknowledged Elizabeth's successor — Impolicy of the demand — Her care for her exiled Scottish friends — Her dower settle- ments violated by the French Court — Her French treasurer and her old physician Lusgerie allowed to come to her at Chatsworth — Rumour of Queen Elizabeth's purpose of visiting her incognito — Mary's hopeful temper — Lusgerie's astonishment at the rigour of her imprisonment — Discontent of her new French secretary Nau — His desire to resign his situation — Mary receives tidings of Bothwell's death, confession of his own guilt, and vindication of her innocence — She desires the truth of the report to be investigated — Raises funds to send commissioners to Denmark for that purpose — Faithlessness of her agent — Copy of Both- well's Confession, attested by Lutheran bishop, noblemen, and magis- trates, sent to Queen Elizabeth and to Scotland by the King of Den- mark— Newly- discovered evidence on the subject — Personal conference of the King of Denmark with Bothwell at Malmoe Castle — Bothwell repeats his confession of his own guilt, and solemnly vindicates Queen Mary — His reported death and actual recovery — Condemned by the King of Denmark, as a self-convicted murderer, to solitary confinement in the dungeons of Dragsbolm — His rigorous treatment, madness, and death — Place and date of his burial — Mary's son, King James, obtains a sight of Bothwell's confession — His satisfaction at seeing his royal mother's inno- cence established — Morton casts Mary's faithful servant Barclay into prison for reporting the fact of Bothwell's justification of the Queen — Mary's visit to Buxton — Favourable eifect of the waters — Leicester intends to proceed thither — Peremptory mandate for Mary's return to Tutbury — Shrewsbury represents the unfitness of Tutbury, and is ordered to conduct her to Sheffield Castle — Lusgerie declares that Buxton would re-establish Mary's health — She presents a head-dress to Queen Elizabeth — Makes her will — Further proofs of friendship be- tween her and Damley's mother. There was one subject on which Mary Stuart can scarcely be considered sane — her desire of obtaining her recognition as the heiress of the throne of England ; absurdly fancying 236 MAEY STUART. that the regal succession depended on the favour or caprice of the reigning sovereign, as if a reahn could be trans- mitted, like personal property, according to the will of the last possessor. This idea had haunted Mary from her infancy in France ; she had pursued it with offensive per- tinacity from the moment of her return to Scotland ; and she continued to act upon it within the walls of an English prison, by urging the French ambassador to remind Eliza- beth of her claims. Mauvisslere assured her that it was both unwise and unnecessary to do so, as it would injure rather than assist her, by exciting the suspicion and jealousy of that Queen.l So far from acknowledging the lawfulness of Mary's claims, Elizabeth pretended to be in profound ignorance on the subject of the succession, and at the close of the Parliament summoned two of the most eminent legalists among the members into her Council-chamber, and required them, for conscience sake, and on the obligation of the fealty they had sworn to her, to tell who was the true heir who ought to succeed her ? Aware of the delicacy of the question, they at first excused themselves from answer- ing it, " fearing," they said, " their reply might not be agree- able." Elizabeth commanded them to speak the truth without fear. " Madam," said they, " this realm was neither acquired by the king your father, yourself, nor any other who could desire to do wrong to those to whom nature gives it." " I demand," interrupted Elizabeth, " who ought to succeed me?" " King Henry, your father, had one son and tv^o daughters," said they, " who have suc- ceeded one aftei the other; and he had two sisters, the eldest of whom ought to inherit after them." " Ha!" ex- claimed Elizabeth quickly, " the eldest was married into Scotland. Is then the Queen of Scotland my heiress?" " It appears so to us," they replied. Elizabeth closed the conference abruptly in these words, " I have no wish to learn anything more about it." Calling Leicester and Wal- singham to her, she observed with great bitterness, " I see plainly that all will now make court to her who will be my ' Despatches of Castlenau de Mauvissiere — Teulet, vol. ii. p. 357. MARY STUART. 237 successor ; for it is the fashion to forsake the old, and to turn away from the setting to worship the rising sun." i Mary Stuart, in the darkest eclipse of her greatness, at least enjoyed the consolation of receiving daily proofs of the disinterested affection of the devoted little company of faithful followers, who were content, for love of her, to share the hardships of her prisons and the same health- destroying privations from air and exercise that were in- flicted on herself. Many a loyal Scottish baron was a landless exile for her sake, and deeply did she sympathise with their sufferings ; but in apportioning her scanty re- sources to the relief of their necessities she experienced great difficulty, and it required some ingenuity to avoid incurring the jealousy of those who did not receive as much as others, whose claims on her gratitude were in proportion to the services they had rendered her. In her instructions to her representative in Paris, the Archbishop of Glasgow, for May 1576, she says, — "The Laird of Fernykirst will receive for the present two thousand six hundred francs. Next year you must deliver secretly to him one thousand francs, which I propose to give him as a regular pension, but will not have it carried to the account, lest others should take occasion to demand the same, as the Laird of Wauchton and the Laird of Honmandes, whom I do not wish to be informed of what Fernyhirst receives from me, though it will be very little for the rank he ought to support. But as I consider his necessities, he ought to feel for mine, whose household is reduced to fifteen or sixteen persons. I should be very glad to have his wife and daughter over here, in order to relieve him of that part of his expenses, according to what you have proposed to me, if a passport could be obtained for them through the intercession of the King, which you can solicit in my name. " It was vain, however, for Mary Stuart to imagine that Queen Elizabeth would ever permit her to receive the wife and daughter of that loyal and intrepid Border chief, who had maintained her cause so long and gallantly, into the number of her personal attendants. Among other wrongs and vexations to which the captive Queen was subjected this year, was the exchange of her fair duchy of Touraine for the inferior one of Vermandois, > Letter of Mauvissiere to Henry III., May 30, 1576— Teulet, vol. ii. p. 351-2. The same incident is repeated by Mary in a letter to the Arch- Mfihop of Glasgow. * Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 323. 238 MARY STUART. in direct violation of the dotarial settlement conceded to her by Henry II. on her marriage with the Dauphin Francis, and which had been confirmed to her, with additional pri- vileges and securities, by her adoring husband, on his acces- sion to the throne of France. The disadvantageous transfer to which she was coolly required to submit, had been sug- gested by her inimical mother-in-law, Catherine de Medicis, who had always grudged her the possession of so noble a jointure. There can be no doubt that the export of the large income Mary derived from this source was a serious inconvenience to her royal brother-in-law, whose impover- ished exchequer could ill support, in addition to the state establishment of his own consort, the burden of three dow- ager queens. Of these, Mary Stuart, in consequence of her superior importance as a sovereign in her own right, had been endowed with the most considerable appanage, inso- much that the Queen-mother was accustomed to observe, with undisguised vexation, " The Queen of Scotland holds the fairest rose in France." Hence her well-known desire for Mary's death. A reconciliation between Henry III. and his brother, the factious Alengon, was effected by this scheming mother, by the clever arrangement of transfer- ring the duchy of Touraine from Mary to him, in order to appease his discontent, and render him a more suitable can- didate for the hand of Queen Elizabeth. Henry III., wish- ing to pay his unfortunate sister-in-law the compliment of asking her consent to the transfer, commissioned the Sieur de Berny as his envoy-extraordinary to her on that business; but when Elizabeth was solicited by the French ambassador, Mauvissiere, to allow Berny to proceed to Sheffield Castle, she took umbrage at the King of France continuing to treat Mary with the respect due to royalty, and refused to grant the envoy access to her. Mauvissiere appearing to con- sider this very strange, Elizabeth proceeded to enlarge on her kindness to the Queen of Scots, declaring " that if the gates of Sheffield Castle were thrown open, the Queen of Scots would not depart to any other place ; and that she would never have made any difficulty of sending her back to her own country, had she not known that it would be MARY STUART. 239 the means of her being put to death by those who were determined never to render her any obedience ; " l and then, conveniently forgetful of the cruel and disgraceful treaty she had concluded with three successive regents for Mary's slaughter, prayed the ambassador to believe " that she would no more ill to the Queen of Scots than to herself/' The Ambassador begged her at least to grant passports for the brother of Du Vergier, Mary's French chancellor, to come over to submit the closing accounts of her dower to her, with Dolu her treasurer; also for Mademoiselle de Ral- lay, and M. Lusgerie her old physician ; and to allow her to visit the baths of Buxton for the benefit of her health." ^ As it would have been a practical contradiction of her boasted kindness and generosity to her royal kinswoman to have negatived requests so simple and reasonable, Eliza- beth graciously conceded all these favours. Unfortunately for Mary, Dolu was intercepted by the way, and robbed of all the money of which he was the bearer.^ Lusgerie had been attached to Mary's service from her childhood, in her bright palmy days, when Dauphiness and Queen of France, and had accompanied her to Scotland, where he was witness of her splendour and her misery, and the confidant of her domestic griefs. He it was whom she sent to the assistance of Darnley in his dangerous attack of small-pox at Glasgow, and whose skill succeeded in preserv- ing him from that usually fatal malady, to fulfil a darker fate from the successful machinations of the subtle traitors who had perseveringly sought his life from the moment that he was the declared object of the choice of their sovereign lady. How many agitating memories must have been awakened by the return of this beloved physician and old familiar friend to her in her English prison ! where he found her under the circumstances which she thus describes to the French ambassador in her letter, requesting him to offer her thanks to her good sister the Queen of England for the leave she had accorded for her to repair to the baths of Buxton, — " My health has been greatly impaired by a tertian fever, which holds me still in great debility. I have been suifering severely with the pain in ' Pieces et Documens — Teulet, vol. ii. p, 35-7. * Ibid. » Ibid. 240 MARY STUART. my bad side ; and, last Friday, a catarrh has attacked my face, which con- fines me still to my bed ; but I hope it will go off, and that I shall be quite well again this spring, after I shall have taken the baths." ' Lusgerle must have arrived at Sheffield Castle about the end of the last week in May, for Mary's new French secre- tary, Jacques Nau, adds a postscript to a letter of his royal mistress, which is dated June 1st, in which he informs the Archbishop of Glasgow " that he has been constrained to sit up the three last nights in order to decipher the letters brought over by him, and to answer them." The lively secretary also communicates the following romantic report, which appears to have caused much pleasurable excitement within the usually lugubrious walls of Sheffield : " We have been secretly given to understand that the Queen of England means to come this summer to the baths of Bux- ton, and then to slip away from her Court in disguise, un- known to them, to visit our Queen at Chatsworth, and hold conference with her. I cannot assure you to a certainty of this, but her Majesty [Queen Mary] has a strong notion that it will be so, and that God will bring matters to a good and happy conclusion.''^ Poor Mary! how prone her ardent temperament was to catch at every shadow of a hope, how- ever wild and visionary. If Schiller, who was a poet and no documentarian, had ever read Nau's letter, he would probably have improved his unhistorical scene of the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth, by modelling it on the outline there sketched of Elizabeth's rumoured intention of visiting her captive kins- woman at Chatsworth in disguise. " Since Monsieur has been here," proceeds the secretary, " we have had no lack of preaching and fine discourses on life and death. We have heard the mass, and we hope to communicate at this feast of Pentecost ; howbeit there will be some difficulty for the want of a priest, unless one be sent."^ The above pas- sage betrays the unsuspected fact, that the interdicted offices of the Church of Rome were solemnised in the apartments of the captive Queen at Sheffield Castle at this time, which' could scarcely have been without the connivance of the Earl 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. » Ibid., vol. iv. p. 331. » Ibid., vol. iv. p. 33L ^ MARY STUART. 241. and Countess of Shrewsbury. The Monsieur alluded to by Nau was probably a French ecclesiastic who had been intro- duced by Lusgerie in the ostensible character of his servant, for there is a mysterious hint in a previous postscript about the company he had brought with him. Lusgerie was both surprised and shocked at the rigorous nature of the incarceration and restraints to which he saw his royal mistress and her faithful household band subjected, and declared they " were worse off than the state prisoners in the Bastille, who were under arrest for their share in the conspiracy of de la Mole and Conconnas." 1 Nau, who had only been there a few weeks, and was already weary of so lugubrious an abode, communicates his dissatisfaction and desire of escape, almost in a tone of reproach, to the Arch- bishop of Glasgow, who had induced him to undertake this unenviable situation. " For my part," he says, " were it not for the grateful regard 1 cherish for the memory of the late Cardinal de Lorraine my good master, obliging me to devote my life to the service of those belonging to him, I should much desire to regain my liberty. As it was by your persuasion and advice I engaged myself here, I will leave it to you to extricate me, without vexing myself more about it." The ciphered letter of his royal mistress, to which the young secretary had taken the liberty of adding this confi- dential communication in the form of a second postscript from himself, is of considerable length. ^ It contains various instructions relating to the relief of the Scottish exiles in Paris, and expresses her fears that Sir James Balfour — who, it will be remembered, had been frequently denounced as one of the accomplices in her husband's murder— would be sent by Morton as an envoy to the King of France, and desires a protest to be entered in her name against his reception by the King her brother-in-law : " If the said Balfour," she with royal spirit adds, " be received in his court in the quality of an ambassador, I shall withdraw mine." ^ This letter was written on the 21st of May ; the first postscript to it, penned by Nau, bears the same date. » LabanofF, vol. iv. p. 331. 2 Ibid. p. 342. ^ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 318. VOL. VII. *^ 242 MAEY STUART. It was not, however, sent till many days afterwards ; for in consequence of receiving the private letters conveyed by Lusgerie, Mary adds a very long postscript herself on the 1st of June, in reply to the Archbishop, in which she says: " I am very sorry to learn the bad disagreement between the Queen-mother and my kinsmen ; for although I had not hoped anything better of her, it seems expedient for me to keep friendly with her, in order to obtain her assistance in time of need, if I could persuade her to it. She does very wrong in pushing on the marriage between Monsieur the Duke and this Queen, inasmuch as the Parliament of this realm will never consent to it, unless driven to extremity." ^ Mary complains of the French ambassador Mauvissi^re as a person in whom she can place no reliance, and that every one attached to the legation is more ready to injure than to serve her; some of them having so far committed themselves in that way, that she thinks, if it were represented to the King, their recall might be obtained ; and if she could be allowed by the King to have a secretary for herself placed with M. de Mauvissiere, she would be very glad for Adam Blackwood to be employed in that capacity. " I know not," pursues she, " who has induced you to write to me about the Priory of Lenfant, nor have I any desire to be informed, nor to act against ray conscience."^ And here a break occurs : the royal writer had received intelligence of much deeper importance, which she thus proceeds to communicate to her reverend correspondent in a separate and concluding paragraph. Let the reader judge whether the person to whom it relates could ever have possessed the slightest in- terest in her heart. " They have given me information of the death of the Earl of Bothwell, and that before his decease he made full confession of his sins, and acknowledged himself guilty of the assassination of the late King my husband, of which he exonerated me most expressly, swearing, on the damnation of his soul, my innocence of it. Now, if it were really so, this testimony would be of much importance to me in con- troverting the false calumnies of my enemies. I entreat ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 324. » Ibid. p. 336. MARY STUART. 243 you, therefore, to inquire into the truth of it by all possible means. Those who were present at that declaration, which has since been signed and sealed by them in the form of a testament" [more properly speaking, an attestation] " were Otto Braw of the Castle of Elcembre, Paris Braw of the Castle of Vascu, Mons. Gullenstarne of the Castle of Ful- kenster, the Bishop of Skonen, and four bailiffs of the town.^ If Monceaulx, who has negotiated in that country formerly, would make a voyage thereto, to inquire more ■particularly, and transmit the attestations, I shall be very glad to employ him, and will supply him with money for his journey."^ How nobly is the innate integrity of Mary Stuart's dis- position manifested by these instructions to her minister, to investigate the truth of a report so favourable to her inte- rests. Writing though she Avere under the veil of a private cipher to that tried and faithful counsellor, a primate of her own Church withal, with whom she knew her communica- tions would be held sacred, she does not ask him to publish this intelligence, but " to ascertain by all possible means whether it were actually true." Had she been really guilty of the crimes imputed to her by the usurpers of her govern- * Mary wrote the Danish names according to her French ear, and as few Europeans are very skilful in the Danish language, and even English ortho- graphy was not settled then, they are each differently spelt in the three editions of this Confession extant. Malcolm Laing having started some quibbling doubts because of this discrepancy as to their authenticity, we submitted them to the late lamented M. de Bielke, Secretary of Lega- tion to the Danish embassy, asking him if they indicated genuine Danish names. He said " they did, and that not one of the noble families there designated was extinct in Denmark, and that the two witnesses whom Mary calls Otto Braw and Paris Braw were members of the distinguished family of Brahe. The celebrated astronomer Tycho Brah^ was their relative, who was visited by James VI., when he went to marry the Danish princess." M. Gullensterne, mentioned in Mary's letter, would be more pi'operly given as Gullion Sterne, the first being the Christian, the other a surname. The family of Baron Cowes of Malinge Castle, mentioned in the Cottonian copy of Bothwell's Confession, is still extant among the Danish isles, the name being spelt "Caas," but pronounced like Cowes in the Isle of Wight. To a Dane the places are all clearly discernible as Danish. ^ June 1, 1576, Sheffield— Labanoff, tom. iv. pp. 330, 331. From the original cipher MSS. in possession of Dr Kyle, preserved in the Scotch Col- lege in Paris. The extract has been printed by Keith with a less literal translation, but the valuable conclusion regarding the mission of Mon- ceaulx is among the many treasures due to the research of Prince Labanoff. 244 MARY STUAET. ment and their literary organ Buchanan, how alarming to her would have been the idea of the deathbed revelations of Both well ! But with the fearless courage which could only emanate from conscious rectitude, she dares the inquiry, and in the mean time expresses no surprise at the report ^ that he had declared her innocence with his last breath, and even " staked the salvation of his soul upon it;'' for the whole tenor of her conduct proves she was satisfied that if he had made confession at all, in the hope of appeasing the wrath of an almighty and all-seeing Judge, he must have . exonerated her from having been a partaker in any of his evil deeds. She had always predicted " that Time, the father of truth, would one day make her integrity manifest." Believing that hour to be now at hand, she desired not to owe her vindication to an unverified report, however advantageous to her. She would not have it published to the world till it were properly authenticated, esteeming it value- less unless founded on fact. ^ A full month passed away before the Archbishop wrote in reply. Being destitute of funds for sending a special mes- senger to Denmark, he had caused the inquiry so earnestly desired by his royal mistress to be made through the French ambassador at Copenhagen. " We received,'' he says, " the news of the Earl of Bothwell's death a good while ago, since which time the Queen-mother here (as M. Lansac assures me) has written to the King's ambassador in ' Denmark to transmit hither a copy of the testament in form ; but this has not hitherto been done. I should think it very proper to send over M. de Monceaulx, and I know also he would willingly enough undertake the journey : however, your Majesty cannot but see that I am in no capacity to afford him the money necessary for such a journey." ^ Mary, though she had not only exhausted but anticipated her dower-rents to minister to the necessities of those loyal Scottish subjects who were destitute exiles in foreign lands for her sake, and had also to contribute to the maintenance of the noble English refugees of her own Church, contrived to raise five hundred crowns, which she sent to Monceaulx, to ^ 1 Keith's Appendix^ p. 142, MARY STUART. 245 pay the expenses of his voyage to Denmark ; but after many months of suspense, she had the mortification of learning from the Archbishop of Glasgow that this covetous and unfaithful agent, instead of undertaking the expedition, had coolly pocketed the cash, under the pretext " that the Queen of Scotland was already indebted to him in that sum on account of the expenses he had incurred in the performance of various missions in which she had previously employed him, and that he could not engage in this without a further advance of money." ^ Previously, however, to this notification, Mary had re- ceived satisfactory intelligence touching the arrival in Eng- land of the attested copy of Both well's Confession, which she communicates to her faithful counsellor, the Archbishop of Glasgow, in the following business-like terms : "I am in- formed that the King of Denmark has transmitted to this Queen (Elizabeth) the testament of the late Earl of Both- well, and that she has kept it as secretly as she could. It seems to me that the journey of Monceaulx is no longer necessary on this account, especially as the Queen-mother has sent there, as you wrote me word;" ^ — meaning that Catherine had requested the King of Denmark to forward a copy to her, through his ambassador, of Bothwell's Confes- sion, attested by the Danish bishop and nobles in whose presence it was uttered ; and as he had sent one of these documents to Elizabeth, Mary had reason to expect that request would be complied with, and to rest satisfied with so agreeable a confirmation of the intelligence that the great criminal, to whose wickedness she had owed the bitterest of her calamities, the stigma that had been cast on her character, had acknowledged his own guilt, and justified her with his last breath. One part of this intelligence was, however, incorrect : he of whom she writes so coolly " as the late Earl of Bothwell " was still in existence, though no • Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 347 — Queen Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, Sheffield Manor, 20th January. ' Printed by Prince LabanofF, vol. iv. p. 340, in French, from the ciphered fragment of the original letter in the Scotch College, dated January 6, 1677, from which Keith had previously printed it in French, with a trans- lation, in his invaluable Appendix, p. 143. 246 MARY STUART. longer treated with the consideration and privileges that had been accorded to his high rank and bold assumption of being the consort of his sovereign lady. Upwards of eight years had rolled away since Bothwell had been removed from Copenhagen to the royal fortress of Malmoe, which is situated in the beautiful island of Schonen, the fairest of the Baltic group under the Danish sceptre. Here he was safely kept from the pursuit of his enemies, both Scotch and English, in spite of their reiterated demands for him to be surrendered in order to suffer the penalty of the crimes of which he had been accused ; for the King of Denmark, not being satisfied of his guilt, as he had written a very plausible memorial, retorting the charges on the usurping faction in Scotland, ordered " that he should be well entertained in the Castle of Malmoe."^ He was de- tained there as a state prisoner, indeed, but led a luxurious and roystering life, and was treated far better than he de- served, being allowed the liberty of shooting and other recreations, while the King of Denmark ordered and paid for velvet dresses and other costly array for his use.^ The leading members of the confederacy that had under- mined the throne and aspersed the reputation of Mary Stuart — Moray, Wood, Lennox, Lethington, and Kirkaldy of Grange — ^had successively been cut off by tragic and un- timely deaths ; the Kegent Mar had died suddenly in the midst of his iniquity, either of horror of conscience, or by poison. Justice seemed to have forgotten Bothwell, who all the while lived recklessly, indulging in his inebriate habits. His debaucheries began at last to tell on his iron constitution within the walls of Malmoe, where he drank and revelled day and night with the Scotch pirate Clerke.* ' Danish documents communicated to the late Mr Howard of Corby, Fellow of the British Historical Society, by C. C. Eafn, Secretary to the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen. * I am indebted for these facts to the research of the learned Danish Professor Worsae among contemporary regal documents connected with Bothwell's imprisonment in Denmark, transmitted by M. Hall, President of the Council, to my friend the Hon. Mrs Buchanan, who has kindly communicated them to me in illustration of this obscure but important portion of Bothwell's history. 3 From the correspondence in the State Paper Office we gather that Gierke was employed as a spy to report Bothwell's conversation, but MARY STUART. 247 Reports came to Scotland, in July 1575, that both were dead ; this was afterwards contradicted in respect to Bothwell, but he was said to be frightfully swollen with dropsy.^ His malady increased upon him with great violence in the following spring, and believing his hour was come, he cried out, in the agonies of an awakened conscience, that he desired to make confession of his crimes. It must be obvious, that although he might have hoped to improve his condition, in the event of his recovery, by con- tinuing to protest his innocence, his only motive in pro- claiming his own guilt, and exonerating his calumniated Queen from the slightest foreknowledge or participation therein, must have been that agonising desire of relieving an overburdened conscience, which occasionally impels per- sons who have previously denied an unproved murder to make, what is vulgarly termed, " a clean breast,'' by avowing it on the eve of execution, or on a deathbed. Bothwell was a violent opponent of the Church of Eome, but a belief in the efScacy of oral confession still lingered; and, appalled by the terroi's of death and judgment to come, he, in the presence of the Lutheran Bishop of Schonen, Baron Cowes the governor of Malmoe, three other Danish nobles, and the four bailiffs of the town, all professors of the Eeforraed faith, and therefore impartial witnesses, " acknowledged himself guilty of the death of the late King Henry, and declared in the most solemn terms that the Queen was innocent of it,^ himself with others of the nobles having contrived and executed it." Being requested by the Bishop of Schonen to tell the names of the accomplices, he replied, The Lord James, Earl of Moray; the Lord Robert, Abbot of Holyrood; the Earls of Argyll, Crawford, Glencairn, Morton, Lord Boyd, Lethington, Buccleuch, and Grange." He confessed himself also guilty of having studied necro- mancy from his youth, and of practising his black arts on his communications of it were confined to the repetition of hopes of getting a favourable decision in some Danish lawsuit in which he was engaged. ^ Murdin's State Papers. 2 Keith's Appendix, 1044. Cotton. MSS., Titus, C. vii.,f. 39. 248 MAKY STUART. the Queen, " especially by the use of sweet water " — mean- ing, perhaps, that he had drugged her eau sucree. For all which he begged pardon of God, and received the sacra- ment in attestation of the truth of all he had affirmed. The Bishop of Schonen, the Danish noblemen, and magistrates, signed the paper in which his confessions were written down in their presence. Duplicates of this paper, attested with their signatures, and sealed with the King of Denmark's seal, were sent by that monarch to Queen Elizabeth and to Scotland.! The death of Bothwell is recorded in both Scotch and English history as having occurred immediately after he had relieved his guilty conscience, by making confession of his own crimes, and declaring the innocence of his in- jured Queen. This statement appearing at the end of each ' Search having been fruitlessly made for these documents, their exist- ence has been very unreasonably contested by Malcolm Laing and other one-sided writers, who were equally incredulous of the truth of Mary's assertion of her mother-in-law's reconciliation and friendly correspondence with her for several years before her death ; a fact which the discovery and publication of Lady Lennox's holograph letter renders now indisput- able. The familiar manner in which Sir John Forster speaks in a letter to Walsingham, the Principal Secretary of State, of the paper in question, proves that it was well known to both of them, and that it was considered of sufficient authority to be used for legal testimony in the Scotch Justiciary Court at the trial of Morton for Darnley's murder. " I hear," he says, " the Testament of the Earl of Bothwell has been put in against him." One of these documents, probably that sent to Elizabeth, was extant as recently as the middle of the last century, in the royal library in St James's Palace, as Mr Hamilton affirms in his Observations on Buchanan, and he makes a quotation from it which indicates that he had seen it. Its dis- appearance may easily be accounted for by the confusion caused by the vile and neglected state in which the MSS. were so long allowed to lie in the cellars of old Harrington House. That any of them escaped may be regarded as a marvel. The substance of Bothwell's Confession has, howevei-, been printed by Bishop Keith from the contemporary copy in French, preserved in the Scotch College at Paris, being an avowedly hearsay version, " derived," it says, " from a merchant worthy of credit, who was present when it was uttered by the said Earl." Another copy is in the Cottonian MSS., Titus, C. vii. f. 39 J the third is in the handwriting of Sir Julias Ceesar, Master of the Rolls to James I., Sloane MSS. Every one of these varies a little in phraseology, though the leading facts are the same. That in the hand of Sir Julias Csesar leaves blanks, instead of mentioning the King or Queen, from excessive caution. The Cottonian copy confines the mention of the accomplices in the murder to Moray (who is there called the Lord Jamy), the Earl of Morton, and Lord Robert, and includes the Archbishop of St Andrews. The reader is referred to the Notes of Pro- fessor Aytoun's Bothwell for very striking and luminous observations on Bothwell's Confession. MAEY STUART. 249 of the three contemporary versions of his confession, even that accurate docuraentarian, Prince Alexander Labanoff, has fallen into the error of stating, in his chronological summary of the events of 1576, " that in April the Earl of Bothwell died at Malmbe, where he was detained by the King of Denmark." But Bothwell neither died there nor then ; local Danish records prove that he survived till the 14th April 1578, in the fortress of Dragsholm, whither he had been privately removed by the King of Denmark.^ The fact of Bothwell's confession previous to his removal from Malmoe is confirmed in the curious Latin MS. Bio- graphy of Mary Stuart, by a contemporary Hungarian historian, the learned Michael Entzinger,^ a most valu- able because a thoroughly impartial authority ; for the Hungarians, intent only on maintaining the honour and independence of their noble country, stood proudly apart from the intrigues, passions, and political falsehoods which have polluted the historical literature of western Europe. Entzinger affirms " that the wise sChd just Frederick II. of Denmark chose to see and confer with this notable prisoner himself, and in a personal interview (which took place before Bothwell was transferred to the dungeons of Dragsholm) solemnly adjured him to declare the truth by making a free and clear avowal whether the Queen of Scot- land was guilty or innocent of her husband's death. Then, Bothwell, after praying God in a loud voice ' to be merciful to him, as he spake truly,' declared ' that the Queen was innocent of having cognisance or foreknowledge of her husband's murder.' On being desired by the King of Denmark to name the assassins, he replied, ' The bastard ' Communicated to the late H. Howard, Esq. of Corby, by C. C. Rafn, Secretary of the Royal Northern Society of Antiquaries at Copenhagen. Dragsholm is situated on the northern coast of Zealand, between the towns of Holbek and Kallandsborg, but is vainly sought for in the map of the Danish province of Zealand ; for, as if to increase the mystery in which the death of Bothwell has been involved, the name of that fortress has been changed to Adelersborg. The apartments occupied by that great state criminal, in the royal castle of Malmoe, have been nearly submerged in the stormy waves that dash perpetually against these gloomy towers. ^ Harleian, 582, 1 * Marise Stuartse, Reg^e Scot^^ Historia Ti'agicse per MichEelem Entzingerum. The manuscript is beautifully legible, easily to be referred to by those who wish to test this evidence. 250 MARY STUART. (Moray) began, Morton drew, and I wove the web of this i murder/"^ I Our learned Hungarian quaintly but impressively con- j eludes his recital in these words, — " Bothwell died, but j ' Davus ' (which means the slave or convicted felon) lived \ an epigrammatic sentence which briefly implies that Both- j well, having by his own confession acknowledged himself \ a murderer, a regicide, a traitor of the darkest dye, and | a practiser of occult arts, was considered to have forfeited , all privileges and titles of nobility, and was no longer ' recognised as a belted Earl and the consort of a Queen, but j treated by the King of Denmark as a condemned criminal, ; although, as he was not a Danish subject, that monarch j did not consider himself justified in putting him to death. j Entzinger's account of the rigorous nature of the in- ! carceration in which Bothwell was doomed to spend I the residue of his days is corroborated by the follow- ing^ passage from the contemporary fragment of Queen ■ Mary's life, attributed to Lord Herries : — " It is recorded .■ that the King of Denmark caused cast him into a loath- some dungeon, where no one had access to him but those j who carried him such scurvie meat and drink as he was 1 allowed, which was given him in at a little window. Here j he was kept ten years {a mistake for two)^ till being over- i grown with hair and filth, he went mad, a just punishment | for his wickedness/' The report of two Scotch voyagers, ; ' Can anything be more striking than the coincidence between these re- ; plies, as recorded by Mary's Hungarian biographer, and the following quota- { tion of them Mr Hamilton has given from his reminiscences of the authen- ' tic copy of Bothwell's Confession, in the royal library in St James's Palace 1 — : " He (Bothwell) declared that the Queen never gave consent to the King's | death, nor was privy thereto, as he should answer to the eternal God." , And being asked the question, Who were the contrivers of it 1 he answered, \ Moray the bastard was the first conti'iver of it, Morton laid the plot, and I accomplished it." — Observations on Buchanan. See also Lives of the j Gordons, by Gordon of Straloch, where the original of Bothwell's Confes- I sion is quoted in the same words. A coincidence that could neither be ; accidental nor the result of anything like collusive agreement ; for though j Entzinger, a contemporary, had probably seen an authentic copy of Both- i well's Confession, Mr Hamilton could scarcely have seen Entzinger's MS. .< Biography of Mary Stuart. Hamilton mentions the Bishop of Schonen, four Danish nobles, and four bailiffs, as attesting witnesses who were present and j subscribed Bothwell's Confession, but, quoting them from memory, he spells the names and the places differently from either Queen Maiy or the other ^ copies of the Confession, MARY STUAET. 251 who happened to land on that coast, and understanding that Bothwell, of whom thej had some knowledge, was confined in the castle, were permitted to see him, corresponds with the above description. But the learned Danish antiquaries of our own times, who have made the inves- tigation of the records connected with Bothwell's deten- tion in their country their particular study, declare " that the popular tradition of his madness is entirely without foundation, and that when at Dragsholm, he was treated much better than he deserved." Bothwell expired on the 14th of April 1578, and was interred in the church of Faareveile,i without either monument or other memorial than the entry in the regis- ter of that parish, which certifies the date of his burial.^ Entzinger adds, "that Bothwell left written letters declar- ing the names and number of the conspirators, the pledges given by them, the means prescribed, the place and manner of its execution, and explaining all things concerning the murder and its authors."' ^ Repps' Hand-Book of Copenhagen. * " The body of Bothwell," writes Professor Worsae, " was interred in the small church of Faareveile, the parish church of Dragsholm. Some years ago, the sacristan of the church showed to me, in a sepulchre beneath the floor of the north aisle, a simple coffin of oak, which, according to tra- dition, enclosed the bones of the consort of the Scottish Queen. The coffin was very much decayed, and had neither plate nor inscription. By a recent restoration of the interior of the church, the said sepulchre has been com- pletely shut up, and covered with a new wooden floor." " Various dates for Bothwell's death have been assigned, but it has been ascertained that Bothwell died at Dragsholm, on the coast of the Danish, province of Zealand, on the 14th of April 1578. MS. communication by Mr Thorl Gudm Repp of Copenhagen." — Note to the very interesting col- lection of deeds and papers connected with the Hepburns, Earls of Both- well, in the Banuatyne Miscellany, vol. iii. p. 280 ; an article from the erudite pen of David Laing, Esq., combining all the curious information derived from his researches and those of that indefatigable antiquary, Mr Riddell. At p. 408 in the same volume, the relationship between Queen Mary and Bothwell, by his descent from the Princess Joanna, daughter of James the First, and also from the son of Queen Joanna Beaufort, by her second husband. Sir James Stewart, " the black knight of Lome," is demon- strated. In fact, Bothwell was as nearly related to the Queen as to his own wife, from whom he obtained a divorce, or rather sentence declaring the nullity of their matrimony, from the Consistorial Court, on the ground of consanguinity within the forbidden degrees. Is it credible, therefore, that Mary, as a devoted member of the Latin Church, would have volun- tarily contracted wedlock that would render its offspring illegitimate ] It is certain she never applied to the Pope for the dispensation which alone could have legalised such wedlock in the eyes of persons of her own communion, either in Scotland or the rest of Christendom. 252 MAEY STUART. It need excite no surprise that Frederick II., although he had the manliness and generosity to make the innocence of his oppressed and calumniated kinswoman, Mary Stuart, universally known, permitted it to be generally supposed that Bothwell had expired at Malmoe immediately after he had declared his own guilt and her innocence ; for that monarch had suffered no little annoyance in consequence of the per- severing demands of the successive Regents of Scotland and the powerful Sovereign of England for him to surrender the fugitive, in order, as he might well suspect, to his being ren- dered instrumental in bringing further obloquy on Mary, as had been done in the case of French Paris, by putting him to death, and then publishing confessions, to suit their own purposes, in his name. Frederick II. was the King of a Protestant revolution, which had been scarcely established long enough to permit him safely to resist the pleasure and united demands of the Governments of England and Scot- land ; therefore he was very willing that the world should believe Bothwell dead. Not the least interesting incident connected with the publication of Bothwell's attested Confession, was the effect it produced on the mind of Mary's son. A copy of this document, having been brought into Stirling Castle, had fallen into the hands of the Laird of Tullibardine, the comp- troller of the household, who, with another gentleman, was eagerly reading it in the King's chamber, not supposing they were observed by the royal student, who was seated at a distant table engaged in writing. Some of their whispered words must, however, have attracted the atten- tion of young James, for he rose, left his writing, and, coming suddenly upon them, insisted on seeing the paper they were reading. Tullibardine would not at first allow him to do so ; but after the refusal had been repeated two or three times, the young King at last snatched it out of his hand, and, having read it carefully, gave it back without making any comment. After he had finished his writing, he began to converse with the gentlemen about him. He was observed to be in better spirits than usual, and continuing in the like animated mood from dinner to MARY STUART. 253 supper, all present were curious to learn the cause. After supper, Tullibardine commended him for his gracious de- portment, and expressed pleasure at seeing him so cheerful. " Have I not reason, Tullibardine, to be so,'" replied the royal boy ; " very grievous accusations and calumnies having been all along impressed upon me against her Majesty the Queen, my mother, that I have this day seen so manifest a testimony of her innocence?" ^ The Archbishop of Glasgow having been informed of this by a gentleman to whom Tullibardine had repeated it, hasten- ed to communicate this touching instance of filial sensibility on the part of her son to Mary, well knowing how precious a cordial it would be to her desolate heart, sorely wounded as it had been during Lennox's regency by learning that the babe, of whom she had been bereaved, had been taught to apply opprobrious names to her with his first lisping ac- cents. He was now in his eleventh year, with powers of intellect precociously developed, when all doubts in regard to the integrity of his royal mother were thus cleared away. There is something peculiarly fervent in the aspiration in behalf of the princely boy, with which the Archbishop of Glasgow concludes his letter to Mary on this interesting subject — " May Almighty God be pleased to grant him His grace to augment the happy beginning of all good and vir- tuous things, which, by the report of every one, are already m him. Young as James VI. then was, he had had opportunities of seeing what manner of men the calumniators of his hapless mother were. " For fifteen years I was among them, but not of them," was his subsequent declaration, when alluding to their treachery and falsehood : " how they treated that poor lady, my mother, is only too well known."^ The regular course of chronology has been a little interrupted by the necessity of giving a full explanation of the fate of Bothwell, and the circumstances under which he rendered his last important testimony of her innocence ' Keith's Appendix, p. 143. 2 King James's address to tlie Convocation at Hampton Court. 254 MARY STUAKT. for that it was not the first we have the authority of Cam- den, " the nourice of antiquity," a contemporary, who, writing with Burleigh's papers and secret correspondence before him, affirms " that Bothwell himself, when he was prisoner in Denmark, attested several times, in his health as well as on his deathbed, and that with the most solemn asseverations, that the Queen was in no degree privy to the regicide." ^ But important as such testimony, in addition to that of the men who had been executed as accomplices in the murder,^ must be considered, the exculpation of Mary Stuart rests on a stronger foundation, for the date of Lady Lennox's intercepted letter, November 1575, proves that Darnley's mother was satisfied of her innocence long before Bothwell's declaration was made in the presence of the Lutheran bishop, noblemen, and magistrates, by whom it was attested ; and also, that she and her son. Lord Charles Lennox, with his wife, Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of Lady Shrewsbury, who had been domesticated with Mary for upwards of six years, deemed her worthy, not only of their love, but their reverence — reverence which nothing but her virtues could have inspired, Mary being at that time a Queen only in name — calumniated, impoverished, and op- pressed, sick and in prison, by whose friendship there was nothing to gain but the wrath of the powerful and vindic- tive sovereign, who deemed that whoever spake ill of Mary Stuart did her a service. It is therefore apparent that these two ladies could have had no selfish motives for writing in that strain to her whom it pleased Elizabeth and her ministers to dishonour. ^ Lady Lennox had both Fowler and Thomas Nelson, Darnley's servants, and Nelson's wife, in her household, where they remained till her death. Is it not, then, the most unreasonable of all paradoxes to assume that she was unin- formed of any portion of the evidences that had been ad- ' Annals of Elizabeth. * See the declaration signed by the majority of the nobles of Scotland, in Appendix of vol. vL, Lives of Queens of Scotland. * See the fac simile of the letters themselves, vol. v. Queens of Scotland. MARY ST U ART. 255 duced by the conspirators for the purpose of producing im- pressions of Queen Mary's guilt ? Her conduct, on the con- trary, proves that she had become, since her husband's sudden and tragic death, cognisant of facts that compelled her to justify, to love, and reverence her royal daughter- in-law, and to transfer the feelings of indignation with which she had previously regarded her to the real authors of the crime — Morton and his accomplices, " the wicked traitors, whose treachery," she tells Mary, " is better known," and whom she encouragingly bids her " not to fear."^ To return, however, to the current course of the narra- tive of Mary's melancholy prison-life. Elizabeth having been prevailed on by the French Ambassador to allow her to go to Buxton Wells, she was conducted thither early in June by the Earl of Shrewsbury, under the guard of a strong escort of armed horsemen, accompanied by her faithful ladies and her old physician Lusgerie, who thought very highly of the waters, and pronounced them to be so well suited to the case of his royal patient, that he formed san- guine expectations of a perfect cure being effected by a per- severing course of the baths and drinking the waters under his direction, in conjunction with such medicines as his long experience of her constitution would lead him to administer. Scarcely, however, was she quietly settled at the Old Hall, and beginning to derive benefit from the air and waters of Buxton, when a peremptory order was despatched by Queen Elizabeth to Shrewsbury, enjoining him " to remove the Scottish Queen immediately to Tutbury Castle a place as disagreeable and inimical to her as Buxton was the reverse. Shrewsbury, however, having no greater desire to proceed thither than his royal charge, instead of obeying the injunction, cunningly stated in reply so formidable a list of objections, as elicited the following communication from Walsingham : — " I have this day received your lordship's letter of the 23d of this present, and imparted to her Majesty such reasons as you allege to show how unfit ' See the fac-simile of the letters themselves, vol. v. Queens of Scotland. 256 MAEY STUART. a place Tutbury is, as well for the safe custody of your charge, as also for necessary provisions ; and she, allowing very well of your said reasons and opinion, notwithstanding her former order given you in that behalf, is now resolved that you conduct that Queen from Buxton back again to your house at Sheffield." l This peremptory mandate for Mary's removal from Bux- ton was pi'obably caused by Leicester having declared " that his physician had ordered him to drink the Buxton waters, and use the baths for twenty days." Lettice, Gountess of Essex,^ with whom he was much scandalised, Lady Norris, and another lady of rank, who is merely mentioned as " my Lady Susan," intended to pro- ceed thither at the same time. Elizabeth thought proper to exert her royal authority over her Master of the Horse, by signifying that it was her pleasure for him to remain with his brother-in-law Huntingdon at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and have the Buxton waters sent to him there for his pota- tions ; ^ thus preventing the meetings her jealous fancy anticipated between him and the fair and unfortunate heiress of the crown. But she was scarcely less anxious to keep Mary from becoming acquainted with any of the ladies of the English Court, of which Buxton became at this time a favourite resort, being, indeed, next to Bath, the most ancient and historically celebrated of British spas. Lusgerie tarried with his royal mistress at Sheffield only till the end of July ; for being an old man, and accustomed to the luxuries and privileges of a Court physician, he found the rigorous restraints imposed on those who loved her well enough to share her prison, intolerable, A young apothe- cary, who had accompanied him from France to prepare his prescriptions, was, 'lowever, induced to remain with her. She writes on the 30t of that month,^ to thank Elizabeth for having graciously permitted the said gargon d!a])otlie- caire to be added to the number of her attendants. She also petitions to be allowed to return to Buxton, and stay long enough to effect the cure which Lusgerie had predicted. She makes him the bearer of a pretty little coffer, and a ' Lodge, vol. ii. p. 74, ^ Sir Francis Knollys' daughter, by Catharine Carey, Elizabeth's first cousin. 3 Lodge, vol, ii. p. 74. * Labanoff, vol, iv. p. 314. MARY STUART. 257 liead-dress, of which she begs Elizabeth's acceptance, with the assurance " that if the style pleases her, she will have another of the same fashion made up for her more at leisure." Mary also lamented " that some things that she had sent for, which would have been more worthy of acceptance, had fallen into the hands of the thieves who had intercepted and robbed her treasurer on his journey." We cannot help thinking the hands into which they fell were quite as deserving of them as those for which they were intended. Poor Mary wrote the same day to her kinsman, the Duke de Nevers, beseeching him to stand her friend in the matter of her duchy of Touraine, and to assist her people with his advice and influence in regard to the exchange that was offered her, that she might not sustain so great a loss as she apprehended. " You can represent," she says, " the condi- tion in which I am, and if I had need of being so unkindly treated there." ^ Remonstrances were unavailing; ungener- ous advantage was, of course, taken of distress and helpless- ness, and that wrong was added to her other grievances. The first intelligence Mary received in the beginning of the year 1577 was, that her loyal servant, Barclay, laird of Grartly, was arrested and thrown into prison, by the usurp- ing faction in Scotland, for having mentioned the fact that Bothwell had declared her innocence in a solemnly attested Confession.2 It was well for him that he escaped sharing the fate of William Scott the notary, and William Trumbull the schoolmaster, two independent burgesses of Edinburgh, who, having dared to write and publish a satirical poem on Morton's siniatrous dealing," were arrested and carried to Stirling, where, by his influence, they were both convicted of slandering one of the King's counsellors, for which new species of treason they were both hanged.^ They were men well respected and beloved by the commons, yet no one dared to protest against the despotic proceedings of the Regent. Such was the freedom of the press, such the respect 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. * Letter from Archbishop Beton to Queen Mary — Keith's Appendix. ^ Hist. James Sext, p. 177. VOL. VII. K 258 MAKY STUAET. paid to law and justice in Scotland, during that reign of terror, for which the gentle and maternal sway of Mary Stuart had been exchanged. Among the occupations of Mary Stuart in the early part of the same year, 1577, was that of making her will. A most interesting fragment of the rough draught intended for that purpose, partly in her own handwriting and partly in that of her secretary Nau, whom she constitutes one of her exe- cutors, is preserved in the MS. room in the British Museum. It commences with a declaration "that, in consideration of the uncertainty of human life, of which no one can or ought to feel themselves secure, unless through the great and infinite mercy of God ; and that she in particular, feeling herself in a peculiar state of danger from the contingencies that may befall her in her captivity, as well as from the long and severe maladies under which she had suffered, and still con- tinues to suffer, has resolved to take the opportunity of being in possession of her reason and sound judgment to make her last will and testament.'' With Christian humi- lity she adds : — • " I acknowledge myself an unworthy sinner, having committed more offences against my God than can be atoned by all the adversities I have suffered. Then I praise Him for His goodness, and my reliance on the Cross of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and recommend my soul to the blessed and indivisible Trinity, and to the prayers of the glorious Virgin Mary, and all the angels and blessed saints in paradise, hoping by their merits and in- tercessions to be assisted in being made participant with them of eternal felicity ; and to render myself better fitted for it, I dismiss from my heart now all resentment for the injuries, calumnies, rebellions, and other offences which have been perpetrated against me during my life by my rebel subjects and other enemies. I leave vengeance to God, and supplicate Him to pardon them with the same fervour that I implore pardon for my own trespasses of Him, and from those whom I have offended either by word or deed." " I will and ordain that, if I decease in this prison, my body be trans- ported to France, and attended thither, at my expense, by all the members of my household, French and Scotch (who shall be with me at the time of my decease), to be buried beside the remains of my late dearly loved and much honoured lord and husband, Francis II., King of France." She gives directions as to the number and mourning of the orphan schools whom she desires to follow in her funeral procession, the alms to be distributed, and the MARY STUART. 259 oflSces to be used. She bequeathes her rights to the crowns of England and Scotland, and everything she has, to the Prince her son, if he becomes a convert to the Church of Rome ; but if he perseveres in what she, in the warmth of polemic antagonism, styles " the heresy of Cal- vin," then she transfers these rights to the King of Spain — a clause that cannot be too severely reprobated. " If her son die before her, she appoints either the Earl of Len- nox [Darnley's brother], or Lord Claud Hamilton, for her successor, whichever shall have proved himself most faithful to her and most constant in his religion, and leaves the deci- sion on these points to her cousins the Dukes of Lorraine and Guise." Yet the young Earl of Lennox had been dead several months, and she mentions him as such in another clause, where she endeavours to secure his title to his daughter, the infant Lady Arabella Stuart. " I give," she says, " to my niece Arbella the earldom of Lennox, held by her late father ; and enjoin my son, as my heir and suc- cessor, to obey my will in this particular" — James being himself the rightful Earl of Lennox. The following codicil has an important bearing on the controverted point of Mary's guilt or innocence ; and but for the confusion in the relatives, which require constant explanation, would doubtless have been quoted long ere this, as containing strong moral evidence in her favour, affording also additional proof of the friendship between herself and her mother - in - law, Margaret, Countess of Lennox : — "I restore to my aunt Lennox all the right that she asserted to the earl- dom of Lennox before the accord made by my recommendation between my said aunt of Lennox and the Earl of Morton, seeing that was done by the late King my husband," — Here Mary alludes to Darnley, and what follows is worthy of particular attention : — " on the promise of his [Morton's] faithful assistance, if we should incur danger and require his aid, which he broke by his secret dealings with our rebel adversaries, who had practised against his [Darnley's] life, and for that purpose took up arms and displayed their banners against us." 260 MARY STUART. j I It is scarcely necessary to explain that Mary here refers to i the first plot for Darnley's assassination at the Parenwell,< and the insurrection of the ringleaders of that conspiracy' immediately after her marriage with the object of their murderous and persevering malice. ! " I revoke," continues the royal testatrix, " all the other gifts I have madej to the Earl of Morton, on his promises of good services for the future, and ' intend that earldom to be reunited to the Crown, if it be found to appertain,' to it, as his [Morton's] treasons, as much in the death of my late husband^ as in my banishment, and pursuit of my friends, have merited. And I pro- hibit my son from being ever served by him, on account of the hatred hej has borne to his parents [herself and Darnley], and which I doubt not is' extended to him also, knowing how he stands affected to the enemies of myj rights to this rea'^h, of whom he is a pensioner." | Mary mentions in her next codicil the man whom she hadj been compelled to receive as her third husband, but she does' so, as usual, with the coolest inditFerence, by the title he ori- ginally bore, and without the slightest allusion to his ever having stood in any other relation to her than that of a| subject : — | " I recommend my nephew, Francis Stuart, to my son, whom I command; fo retain him in his service, near his person, and to let him have the pro- perty of the Earl of Bothwell, his uncle, because he is of my blood, my godson, and was left to my guardianship by his father." ' 1 The boy of whom Mary speaks was the orphan of her best-loved illegi-, timate brother, Lord John of Coldingham, and Lady Jean Hepburn, Both-' well's sister. Mary was always passionately fond of him for his father's] sake. Her son obeyed her desire by making him Earl of Bothwell, bulii found him a most troublesome and turbulent person. ■ Bothwell's mother died in 1572 at an advanced age. She is described ini the endorsement of her will in the Consistorial Court of Edinburgh " Ane noble and mightie lady, Dame Agnes Sinclair, Countess of Bothwell' and Lady of Morham, who left of free gear £224, 1 3s. 4d., leaving her daugh- ter Jane Hepburn, maistress of Cathness, her sole executrix. She left alii she possessed, her debts being paid, to William Hepburn, son natural to James, Earl Bothwell. This young man was in arms against the usurp-' ing Regent Mar in 1571, and his noble grandmother was forced to ap-| pear before the said Regent and Privy Council, and to give security (her kinsman, Henry Lord Sinclair, becoming her cautioner or surety), that she would neither supply nor commune with the said William Hepburne^J natural son to James, some time Earl of Bothwell, nor nane others of th^ King's rehels."— Privy Council Register, Dec. 26, 1571 {communicated ly John Riddell, Esq.) Bothwell's son died a natural death. The divorcedi Countess of Bothwell lived to be turned of ninety : she married twice! after Bothwell's exile ; but neither during Mary's life, nor after her death,j ever imputed blame to her. MARY STUART. 261 Among other legacies to her dependants Mary be- queathes — "A hundred crowns to Hannibal : and I charge my cousin de Guise," continues she, " to maintain him during his life, being his godson and mine, and a poor idiot." This will,^ though neither signed nor executed, must be regarded as a highly curious and valuable document, as affording a most interesting insight into the character and feelings of the royal testatrix, and especially of the friendly regard then subsisting between her and Darnley's mother, Lady Lennox. ' Cottonian MSS. Vespasian, cxvi., f. 145, formerly ; but now removed to a glass-case in the MS. room, British Museum, where it may be seen in Mary's original French holograph. MARY STUART CHiPTEE LVI. SUMMARY. Queen Mary revisits Buxton — Leicester follows her — Establishes himself in the same house — He tries to win her confidence about Don John of Austria — She distrusts him, and is sent back to Sheffield Castle — Her maitre d'hdtel, Andrew Beton, in love with Mary Seton — Queen Mary advocates his suit — Mary Seton's perverse vow — Queen Mary sends Andrew Beton to France to get it nullified — Uneasiness caused by his long absence — She writes to urge his return — His death — Queen Mary's portrait and pictorial needlework at Hardwick — Her projects to get her son out of Morton's hands— Co-operation of her mother-in-law, Lady Lennox, in her designs — Private information sent to Mary by her — Morton deposed from the regency of Scotland — Mary's letter to Arch- bishop Beton on the death of Lady Lennox — That lady's friendly corre- spondence with her, and acknowledgments of her innocence — Confede- racy formed by the Dukes of AIen9on and Guise for Mary's liberation — Her letter in reply to their ofi^er- — Projects of Don John of Austria for freeing Mary, and making her Queen of England, frustrated by his death — Mary's anxiety about her son again in Morton's power — Sends Nau to him with letters and presents — He is interdicted from receiv- ing them, because not addressed to him as King — Mary appeals to Elizabeth — Her son writes to her, and sends her a ring — Both are in- tercepted — She designs and causes to be struck medals emblematical of her mournful state — Her prison essay on the Uses of Adversity. Mary was permitted to revisit Buxton in the latter end of May 1577, an indulgence which she appears to have obtained by propitiating Elizabeth with various elegant articles of dress embroidered by her own hand. During the early part of her sojourn, the Earl of Leicester repaired thither under the pretext of using the baths and waters for the benefit of his health ; and he actually had the boldness, through the favour of his friend Shrewsbury, to take up his MARY STUAKT. 263 abode under the same roof with her.^ Burleigh, naturally suspecting that some dangerous political intrigue was on foot between him and Mary, prepared to follow, for the purpose of keeping a sharp watch on their proceedings ; but his intention was traversed by Elizabeth, who sent him a peremptory summons to return to the Court. Leicester's visit to Buxton was undoubtedly with the sanction of his royal mistress,^ for the purpose, under the flattering guise of devotion to the interests of the captive heiress of the Crown, of endeavouring to elicit from her the particulars of her secret engagement to Don John of Austria, the report of which at that time excited great uneasiness in the Eng- lish Cabinet. Leicester's proceedings, as related by Mary in a let- ter to her faithful servant. Archbishop Beton, are highly curious : — " The principal subject ^ that I have to write about is the journey of Leicester to the baths of Buxton, where he was honourably received by my host Shrewsbury. Several persons have conceived great jealousy and suspicions on account of it. For my part, after having sounded, by the best means in my powei", what his motives for this journey were, I have learned that it was undertaken chiefly for the purpose of practising with the nobles in this neighbourhood, about the marriage he pretends to solemnise with this Queen, and which every one believes has been long secretly contracted between them. He speaks himself more freely on the subject than may, peradventure, be found profitable for him in the end. But aware there would be great difficulty in winning my consent to it, without offering some considerable advantage in return, he has thought proper very dutifully to assure me, through a third person, of the good affection borne towards me by this Queen and himself, even in regard to my claims on the succession to the English crown. In order to conciliate me on this point, he gave a very bad reception to the Earl of Huntingdon, his brother-in-law, when he came to see him, not suffering him to remain with him more than half a day. I need not repeat to you the various 1 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 367. 2 Elizabeth wrote with her own hand to thank the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury for their honourable treatment of the Earl of Leicester. " We should do him great wrong (holding him in that place of favour we do)," she says, " in case we should not let you understand in how thankful a sort we accept the same at both your hands, not as done unto him, but to our own self, reputing him as another ourself." — Lodge, vol. ii. p. 80. If any genuine letter from Mary Stuart, mentioning Bothwell as her second self, could be produced, it would be triumphantly quoted as an irrefragable evidence of guilt and folly. ® Labanoff. 264 MARY STUART. matters on which he discoursed with me ; for all I gather from them is, that the said Earl of Leicester wishes to maintain himself in her [Queen Elizabeth's] favour as long as she reigns, and to provide for himself here- after; and I have determined to annex no more faith to his professions than his deeds, full of all dissimulation, give me cause." After mentioning Burleigh's jealousy of Leicester's visit to Buxton, and that his intention of coming there himself to traverse Leicester's designs had been frustrated by Eliza- beth, Mary proceeds : — " Leicester has offered to write to this Queen to exculpate me from the charge of permitting Don John's courtship without her knowledge or consent, and has also advised me to engage all the princes in Christen- dom to unite in making instances for my liberation, or better treatment at least ; which suit, he hoped, would not be rejected. My answer to this was briefly, that when the Queen his mistress made her good-will towards me apparent, by kinder usage, I might force myself to give her credit for the like sincerity in regard to me that I had always observed towards her, having been so often deceived by her promises — as, for instance, when she beguiled me into making my friends lay down their arms in Scotland ; and while all her principal counsellors and favourite servants were so inimical to my welfare and the good of my cause, it was difficult to hope for better things from her for the future than I had experienced in the past. In regard to foreign princes, if they felt disposed to resent the wrongs and injuries that have been done to me here, I had neither the power to pre- vent it nor to aid them, for all means of writing had been taken from me ; but if this Queen had the good-will to me that he gave me to understand, she would make it so apparent by her conduct that I should not need to be obliged to any one but herself." ^ Leicester, finding it impossible to worm himself into the confidence of the captive Queen, left Buxton, and returned to report his ill success to his royal mistress. Mary was remanded back to Sheffield Castle, and Julio Borgarucci, an Italian physician, much patronised by Leicester, whose repu- tation as a poisoner was notorious, was despatched thither on a private mission to Shrewsbury, the object of which has been darkly hinted by historians f but whatever might be the sins of Shrewsbury and his Countess against Mary Stuart, they were incapable of sanctioning any of the occult practices against her life which Leicester recommended. That Mary's fears of poison were considered well founded 1 LabanofiF, p. 372. 2 Lodge, vol. ii. p. 85, 8vo edit. See also Chalmers's Life of Mary Stuart. MARY STUAET. 265 by her servants, we have the following testimony from the pen of her faithful master of the household, Andrew Beton, in the confidential postscript which he added to one of her letters to his brother, the Archbishop of Glasgow: " I pray to present my very humble service to the Cardinal de Guise, and tell him there has been great need of keeping in remembrance the injunction he gave me at my departure from Villers-Cotterets, touching the care that I ought to have of the food of the Queen our sovereign ; for in truth, without the providence and mercy of God, and the good diligence of the servants of her Majesty, we should long ago have been here without a mistress.^ " The appointment of Mary's persevering suitor, Don John of Austria, to the government of the Spanish Netherlands, gave serious cause for uneasiness to Elizabeth's Cabinet. Philip II. prepared troops for a simultaneous invasion of Ireland and England for the liberation of the captive Scot- tish Queen, in the expectation of being supported by the Koman Catholic population in both realms, and her friends of the Protestant faith as well. The military talents of Don John of Austria, and the chivalric nature of his enterprise, supported by the wealth and power of Spain, were only too likely to dazzle the minds of the romantic. Matters were progressing silently, but with every prospect of success, when a courier, charged with a confidential letter from Don John to his brother Philip, fell into the hands of a troop of Protestant soldiers, who sent it to the King of Navarre ; he sent it to the Prince of Orange, by whom it was imme- diately communicated to Queen Elizabeth. That able princess took such measures for the defence of her realm as rendered this formidable project abortive. Yet Don John's fancy being strongly fixed on Mary, he indulged dreams of obtaining her for his consort, by means of an amicable treaty with her royal jailer.^ " Two such as I know to be spies for Queen-Mother," writes Sir Amyas Paulet from Poictiers to Queen Elizabeth, " have told ' Sheffield, tlie 13th of January 1575— Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 260, 2 Ibid. 266 MARY STUART. me within these two days that Don John hath sent to your Majesty to require the Queen of Scots for his wife/' l Mary herself, in a letter to her absent maitre d'hdtel^ Andrew Beton, thus alludes to the reports of her matrimonial engagement to the chivalric governor of the Netherlands, with diplomatic coolness : " Walsingham has been made to believe, and on his imagination would fain persuade this Queen, that the object of your journey was to assist in those negotiations, and that directly you arrived in Paris, your brother [the Archbishop] posted off, under the pretence of the baths, to Don Juan, to arrange the treaty for his marriage with me." How different the errand was on which Mary despatched Andrew Beton to the Continent, let the following episode, the details of which are included in her correspondence of the current year, witness; proving withal, that unlike her cousin Elizabeth, who prohibited matrimony to her lords in waiting, and imprisoned such as presumed to enter that honourable estate without her license, Mary was ad- dicted to the amiable propensity of match-making. Andrew Beton had been sent over from France, at Queen Mary's request, by Archbishop Beton, on the death of his eldest brother, John Beton, Laird of Criech, in 1570, to supply the place of that faithful and much-lamented servant, as her maitre d'hotel.^ He performed the duties of this pro- fitless service so well as to entitle himself to the grateful consideration of his royal mistress. Unfortunately, how- ever, for his peace, he became enamoured of Mary Seton, the only one of the four Maries who, eschewing the snares of wedlock, had remained, through good report and evil report, inseparably attached to the service of her royal friend Mary Stuart. Though turned of thirty, Mary Seton was still suf- ficiently charming to inspire a deep and enduring passion in the heart of the new inmate of their prison-house. Oppor- tunity and importunity in many cases prevail, but Andrew Beton found it impossible to persuade the fair Seton to » August 6, 157T.— Murdin, 314. * Labanoff, vol iy. p. 378. ' Ibid. MAEY STUART. 267 listen to his suit. At last, after serving, like Jacob, for seven years, in the hope of being rewarded with her hand, he wrote to his brother, the Archbishop of Glas- gow, to complain of her cruelty, and besought him to solicit the influence of the Queen in his behalf. But even the royal Mary, whose kind heart sympathised with the distress of the rejected lover, pleaded his cause to her early associate and devoted attendant in vain ; for Mary Seton declared " that Andrew Beton, being of inferior lineage, a younger brother, and not of noble blood, was no fitting match for her ; " and when the Queen offered to make all right as far as titles and honours could go, she replied " that she was not free to marry, having made a vow to devote herself to a life of celibacy." Notwithstanding her own attachment to the Church of Rome, this excuse was treated by her Majesty with contempt, as may be seen by what she writes to the Archbishop on the subject of the per- versity of Mary Seton, and her advocacy of Beton's suit : — ''Wishing to gratify you in so good an object, I have taken the respon- sibility on myself of making her dispense with her pretended vow, of which I think nothing ; and if the opinion of the doctors coincide with mine, I am to take all the rest upon myself. Now, as to the first point, our man, whom I have brought in presence, has enterprised somewhat eagerly, con- sidering the difficulties there are in it, to undertake the journey himself, to report the decision of the vow, and, at the same time, to consult with you on the matter, and to arrange for you to come in three months It will be necessary to write again to her brother to ascertain whether he will do as I wish about it, in order to get over, as smoothly as possible, the difficulties which are made in our country about the difference of rank and titles. Your brother will show you what I have done in this matter, with which he cannot but find himself pleased, and willing to serve me, in consequence, better, if possible, than ever. And, in the mean time, I will make apparent by deeds my wish to gratify you both." In her postscript to this curious letter, Mary adds : — " I have communicated the above to the damsel, who accuses me of too great partiality, seeing, that, for the sake of brevity, I have omitted all the circumstances under which she has made her submission to me, as a matter of duty, but in the hope of obtaining some indulgence for the observation of her vow, if it should be found null, her inclination hav- ing been for a long time, especially since our incarceration, more disposed to continue in her present condition than to enter into that of marriage ! This I have promised to explain to you, as the confidence she reposes in 268 MAEY STUART. me merits, and to decide as I shall find in my conscience best for her, so as to put her out of any danger of blame in consequence of acting by my direction, in the event of my considering it best to persuade her to enter the state less agreeable to herself. She demurs much on the difference of titles and rank, and told me that she has heard the marriages of the two sisters Livingston spoken of slightingly, because they had espoused the younger brothers of their equals ; and that she feared her relations, in a country where such etiquettes are kept up, would be of the like opinion. But, as the Sovereign of them both, I have offered to take the charge upon me of finding, as far as I in my present state can, a remedy." ^ Andrew Beton proceeded to France on this romantic mission, to consult his right reverend brother on the proper means to be pursued for obtaining a dispensation for Mary Seton to contract matrimony with him, notwithstanding her vow, or a nullification of it altogether. But ecclesias- tical business has always been proverbially tardy, and the love-lorn maitre d'hdtel was burdened with much of the Queen's secret correspondence with her own relations, be- sides a vast amount of commissions from her and her ladies to match shades of silk for their embroidery, and to pur- chase and convey all sorts of choice millinery, patterns for dresses, and perfumery. His return was in consequence so long delayed, that Queen Mary, who suffered great incon- venience from his absence, wrote to inform him, that unless he came back very soon, she should be under the necessity of appointing a new maitre d'hdtel. He assured her in reply that he hoped to return immediately. Still he came not, and inimical reports of his proceedings were insinuated to his royal mistress. In her long confidential letter to him on the 22d of August 1577, after alluding to these, she says : — " Keep yourself more close, and be as cautious as you can in passing through England, in order to efface these impressions, and forget not to assure that Queen of the resolution you have always seen me hold, rather to preserve, by patience, to myself and my son, the right which, after her, I pretend to this crown, than to risk it by any enterprise ; and that all my relations, from what I have written to them about it, have the same affection to the weal of this realm and to her, hoping that in time I shall receive all good treatment on her part, which will be a far better way to assure herself both of them and me, rather than by indignities and the rigours of captivity, to drive me to devise, and them to execute, that which 1 Labanoffjvol. iv. p. 341-344. MAEY STUART. 269 I should not so much as thought of, were it not required for the preserva- tion of my life and my rights in this realm." Mary then adverts to his love affair with the fair Seton, which, under her friendly patronage, appears to have pro- gressed favourably. She tells him that, as by the last let- ters from his mistress he ought to be sufficiently impressed with her disposition to bring matters to the desired end, he must rest satisfied till his return that she will always act the part of his good friend ; but as for imposing the command on her he requires, she does not see how she can do it, or in any way add to the declaration she has made of being will- ing to do her utmost to make everything agreeable." She then proceeds : — " The assurance you have given me of your speedy return, keeps me from looking out for a gentleman to serve me as the master of my house- hold in your absence ; and since I have had information of the sojourn of Melville with the rebels of France, I have done nothing more about him. Leave nothing behind you that may be ready to send to me, especially the things Hctman wrote to you about for me. If there be any novelties in stuifs, materials for dresses, or any other little requisites that you think might please me, do not forget to bring them over for me, and your bro- ther will make the treasurer there disburse the means. I am very glad that you will be able to accommodate Charles Paget ; but to avoid the suspicion it would create, make him buy and send the spinnet, by any person coming over, whom he does not mistrust." ' The Scotch secretary added this facetious " Postscriptum. — From your servant, Gilbert Curie, who commends himself very humbly to your favour, and assures you that he has, according to your desire, made your commendations to Mademoiselle de Seton, Ma- demoiselle de Rallay, your last year's Valentine, and to all of this com- pany." In her letter to the French Ambassador of the 2d of Sep- tember, Mary anxiously observes, — " I have not had any tidings of the return of my maitre d'hStel, Beton. His bro- ther, my ambassador, has not written anything about him to me as you fancy, and I am in no small trouble, seeing my table so ill served in his absence. Howsoever, I shall wait for the next despatch before I provide what I know to be necessary." ^ ' Signed with a figure of 9, which signified Queen Mary — Labanoff. 2 Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 398. 270 MARY STUART. Long did tlie captive Queen and her ladies look for the return of the enamoured master of the household, to enliven the lugubrious monotony of their prison with his French news, and secret Scotch intelligence collected in France, his exciting budget of ciphered letters, and scarcely less inter- esting freight of Parisian millinery, and the pretty novelties in silks and bijouterie he had been commissioned to pur- chase. Perhaps if the secrets of all hearts had been re- vealed, that of the proud, coy Mary Seton might have been detected, under all her sly semblance of indifference, beating anxiously for his return with the nullification of her per- verse vow of celibacy ; but if absence, and the test to which she had put his love, had taught her to prize him as she ought, it was all too late, for she never saw him again. He died on his homeward journey ; and the fact is thus alluded to by Queen Mary in a letter to his brother the Archbishop, dated November 15th : — " I hope to be informed of the state of affairs in Scotland through your intelligence with M. de Seton, to whom I pray you to make my commen- dations, and assure him of my good-will to him, according to his fidelity and devotion to my service. The desire that I had of your being allied by the marriage of your brother with Seton's sister, Mary, makes me regret his death the more, besides the loss I have sustained in so faithful a subject and servant. Endeavour to bear this calamity with the fortitude that time and resignation may at length bring even to the most feeble, that you may be preserved to continue with your Sovereign in the course of her adversities as constantly as you have persevered till now. I pray God to give you all necessary consolation, and to have you in His holy care." ' Her French secretary, Nau, in his postscript to the Queen's letter, after expressing regret at her want of more experienced counsellors, adds very feelingly : "All this com- pany lament much the death of your late brother, myself, for your sake, more than all the others. I will write to you hereafter by the usual way, for I cannot dispose myself to do it now, from the remembrance of a fate so sad ! " Mary Seton continued with the Queen seven years longer, when her health became so greatly impaired by the hard- ships and cold of the damp comfortless prisons in which they ' Labanoff, vol. iv. p. 402. MAKT STUART. 271 were incarcerated, that she at last withdrew to the convent at Eheims, over which Queen Mary's aunt Renee of Lorraine presided, and ended her days in cloistered seclusion — a lot for which her royal mistress sighed in vain. Among the noble collection of historical portraits belong- ing to the late Duke of Devonshire in the gallery at Hard- wick, is a fine whole-length of Mary Stuart, which, accord- ing to the antique Latin inscription, in the upper corner on the right hand, "was painted at Sheffield Castle in 1578, the thirty-sixth year of her age and the tenth of her English captivity." This is possibly the identical picture mentioned by her French secretary Nau in a P.S. to one of Mary's letters to the Archbishop of Glasgow, dated August 31, 1577, as in the course of preparation, and in- tended as a present for him, but unfinished. " I thought," writes he, " to have had this accompanied by a portrait of her Majesty ; but the painter has not been able to bring it to perfection before the despatch goes. It shall be sent next time." The picture was not finished till the beginning of the year 1578, and probably no opportunity of trans- mitting it occurring, remained at Sheffield Castle in the possession of the Shrewsbury family, till removed to deco- rate the stately new mansion erected by the Countess at Hardwick, unless, indeed, the artist, to whom their royal charge sat, was employed to paint a duplicate likeness of her whom the contingences of a day or hour might call from a prison to unite the realms of the Britannic empire under her sceptre — a chance which her keepers were too full of world-craft not to call to mind occasionally. The picture in question has all the characteristic traits of a genuine portrait of Mary Stuart, closely resembling that at Dalmahoy,^ presented by herself to George Douglas, and in the same costume, only the ruff" is somewhat loftier and more expansive ; she wears the pointed widow's coif and embroidered veil, edged with narrow scalloped trimming of point guipure, familiar to us in her prison portraits. Her ' Engraved by the courteous permission of the late Earl of Morton, for the frontispiece of Vol. VI., Lives of the Queens of Scotland, &c. . , 272 MARY STUART. face and attitude are expressive of mingled sweetness and sadness, as If she had taken the exhortation to heart : " In your patience possess ye your souls." There are also at Hardwick two tableaus of Mary Stuart's pictorial needlework, probably executed by her in- dustrious fingers during her close confinement at Sheffield, Chatsworth, or Tutbury ; for though the Derbyshire tradi- tions connect her name and memory with Hardwick, there is no documentary evidence that she was ever there. The bed worked in cross-stitch by her and the voluntary com- panions of her durance, was, we know, brought thither from Chatsworth, and has been much deteriorated and diminished in its size by the dishonourable practice of visitors in cutting out pieces as relics. The tableaus at Hardwick are protected from such depredators by being framed and glazed. They are about a yard and a half in length, and three quarters of a yard in height, worked in tent-stitch. The first represents Abraham's trial of faith in the prepara- tions for the sacrifice of Isaac. The design is grand and artistical ; but the distinctive traits by which we connect the work with Mary, are the veritable effigies of her cousin the Duchess of Joyeuse, Margaret of Lorraine, in the fore- ground, in the costume with which every one who has seen her contemporary portrait, must be familiar ; and to iden- tify her more particularly, the daisy or Marguerite, symbol of her name, is introduced, growing at her feet, and en- twined in the long wreath of natural flowers, the roses, pansies, and forget-me-nots, fleurs des souvenances, that surround this curious piece. In this border, royal Scotch thistles, hare-bells, and roses, are also conspicuous. A lady leading a boy by the hand, in miniature proportions, appears in the background, as if fleeing to the city of refuge at the foot of Mount Moriah. Probably these figures were in- tended by Mary for herself and her son ; and the whole designed to recall herself and her sad case to the memory of her kinswoman and early friends of the house of Lorraine.^ '' Margaret, Duchess of Joyeuse, to whom this piece is apparently dedi- cated, was the sister of Louise of Lorraine, consort of Henry IIL MAEY STUAET. 273 The pendant to this tableau is of the same size and simi- lar work, representing the Judgment of Solomon. The costume is also of the court of Henry III. of France. The rival mothers, kneeling on either side the throne of Israel, wear high ruffs and fardingale hoops. The dead infant lies on a purple cushion between the contending parties, at Solo- mon's feet ; the living one is in the hands of a gorgeously attired officer of state, in point-lace collar, pearl earrings, purple pourpoint and hose, checked with gold-coloured silk. His curled locks stand on end with horror as he prepares, with uplifted sword, to execute the royal mandate. Two courtiers, in scarlet and green, with amber-coloured hose, appear, discussing the fiat of their king. One holds a round grass-green hat, laced with gold, and decorated with a white ostrich feather. It is, like the other, bordered with Mary's royal flowers. Both pieces are worked in coloured wools, like those used by ladies in our own times ; the lights are put in with floss silk. They are evidently designed and executed by the self-same hands as the screen belonging to the Earl of Morton at Dalmahoy, which was left unfin- ished by Mary at Lochleven Castle;^ but they are in much better preservation, from having been kept from the air. They were discovered by the late Duke of Devonshire a few years ago, in an old oaken chest, where they had been lying, apparently forgotten, for more than two centuries, uninjured by moth or damp, the colours being as fresh and bright as when they were first combined.^ Mary ob- tained her materials, and occasionally her patterns, of which these tableaus are a case in point, from France. The captive sovereign concludes a long letter to the French Ambassador, on important political subjects, with this truly ' See Vol. VI. p. 32, for description and fac-simile engraving of this curious relic. * There is a great deal of embroidery, both in silk and wool, by the Countess of Shrewsbury, at Hardwick, with her initials, E. S., curiously entwined in the foreground ; but though enriched with beads and twisted gold thread, it is very inferior to that of Mary Stuart, both in the designs, which are ludicrously out of proportion, chiefly mythological fables, and in the execution. VOL. VII. s 274 MARY STUAET. feminine paragraph : " I have received the little box from the President, Duverger, with the shades of silk for my embroi- deries, and all the other requisites you have sent me, by the carrier of this town, and thank you heartily for the good diligence you have used in this matter." ^ The appearance of a comet, pointing directly over Wind- sor Castle, caused great excitement in England this autumn, for it was said that, as the like phenomenon had preceded the deaths of Henry YIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary, this portended that of Queen Elizabeth. The predictions of the star-gazers, who came out every night in crowds to observe the comet, made the Queen very melancholy and nervous. "A severe cold, attended with pain in her teeth and head, which befell her at this time, was attributed," says the French Ambassador, Mauvissi^re, "to the malice of the said comet, but the religious portion of the community declared it was heretical to promulgate such notions ; and the new Bishop of London considered it necessary to calm the public mind by preaching a sermon, assuring his hearers " that the appearance of the comet portended no evil to the Queen, but the utter downfall of Popery, and all its support- ers." 2 Of these the captive heiress-presumptive of the realm was unhappily accounted the chief. Projects for getting her boy out of the hands of Morton, and having him conveyed to France, occupied Mary's mind during the year 1577. Her mother-in-law, Lady Lennox, was not only consenting, but eagerly co-operating with her in this design. " I can tell you no more on this subject," writes Mary to Archbishop Beton, "save that, by the new regulations of my son's house, Drumquhassil has been appointed Master of his Household, which is very favourable for the execution of our enterprise, if he remain faithful to his promises. I know that he depends entirely on Lady Lennox, my mother-in-law, and she has recently given me to understand that she is infinitely offended with, and 1 Queen Mary to M. de Mauvissiere; Sheffield, September 2, 1577.— Labanoff, vol. iv. ^ Letter of M. de Mauvissiere to the Queen-Mother of France, Nov. 20 1577. ' MARY STUART. 275 irritated against, Morton, about a letter he has written to her, which has been shown to me — the most insolent and disdainful that even king could have written to the meanest lord among his subjects.^ I praise God that she becomes daily more sensible of the faithlessness and evil intentions of those whom she formerly assisted with her name against me, their designs having always been inimical to our race, as they are now rendering sufficiently apparent, and this makes us both dread the perils to which we see my son exposed/' Early in the spring of 1578, the royal mother exulted in the tidings of the bloodless revolution which deposed Morton from the regency, and invested her son with the govern- ment of Scotland, though he had not fully completed his twelfth year,^ The party by whom this loyal movement was effected was headed by the Earl of Atholl. According to the reports of Queen Elizabeth's envoy, Sir Robert Bowes, " Morton was much despised and hated by the people of Scotland, and the majority of the Lords were anxiously devising means for bringing home their Queen."^ But, even as it had been at the cutting off of the three previous usurpers, who, under the specious title of regents, had appropriated the power and revenues of the Crown, so was it at the deposition of Morton. Incarcerated in an English fortress, her person was irrecoverable. Popular feeling might destroy or dispossess her foes, but to replace her on her throne was impossible. Her cause was, how- ever, now identified with that of her son, and he was regarded by all true Scots as her representative. She writes of him to the Archbishop of Glasgow "as the future avenger of her wrongs,"' calls him "her dearest jewel," and flatters herself with the idea his marriage with the Infanta of Spain will be accomplished ; though her mother-in-law, Catherine de Medicis, had made an overture for an alli- ance between him and the young Princess of Lorraine, daughter of Claude of France. " But," observes Mary, "knowing of old the little good-will the Queen-Mother 1 Labanoff, iv. 397. 2 Labanoff. Tytler. s Murdin, 315. 276 MARY STUART. bears us, if it be not for some particular advantage for herself, which is the object of all her designs, I believe this overture is made with no other intention than that of breaking the suspected treaty with the King of Spain, both for the marriage of my son with one of the Infantas, and my own with Don John. In like manner, as formerly, when the Cardinal de Lorraine was negotiating an alliance between me and the late Prince of Spain [Don Carlos], she endeavoured to circumvent me by her great professions of regard, and proposing to me a marriage with the King her son, who is now reigning."^ Mary's satisfaction in the emancipation of her boy from the thrall of Morton was but of brief duration. That subtle traitor, by means of his intrigues with the young Earl of Mar, the hereditary governor of Stirling Castle, succeeded in repossessing himself both of that fortress and the person of the young King, over whom he, for a season, resumed his former control.^ Pent within the strong and sternly guarded walls of Sheffield Castle, Mary could only weep and pray for his deliverance, and importune her uncle. Cardinal Guise, with letters, to raise funds for her visionary scheme for the enfranchisement of her boy, by getting hini trans- ported from Stirling Castle to Dumbarton, and from thence to Flanders or to France. The sudden death of Margaret, Countess of Lennox, at this critical juncture, a few hours after the Earl of Leicester had been dining with her tete-a-tete, deprived Mary of her most influential coadjutor in her efforts for this object. The letter in which she announces that event to her faithful servant the Archbishop of Glasgow, is a document of no ordinary interest. " The Countess of Lennox, my mother-in-law, died about a month ago, leaving a little granddaughter, of whom this Queen has taken charge.^ I write to those who are V 1 Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, 10th of April 1577. Labanoff, vol. V. p. 23. 2 Tytler. Labanoff. ^ This was the orphan daughter of Darnley's brother, Lord Charles Lennox, by his marriage with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, the unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. See Vol. IL, Life of Margaret, Countess of Lennox. MAKT STUART. 277 about my son to put in a claim in his name to the in- heritance, not out of desire to what she has left her, but to testify by that declaration that he and I ought not to be considered or treated as aliens in the realm of England, since we were born in the same isle." ^ Then referring to Lady Lennox, she says : " This good lady, thank God, was on the very best terms with me, since the last five or six years we have corresponded together, and she has acknowledged to me in letters, written by her own hand, the wrong she had done me by her unjust persecu- tions, excited, as she has given me to understand, by her having been badly informed, but principally by the express commands of the Queen of England, and the persuasion of her Council, w^ho were bent on preventing our agreement ; but, when she became convinced of my innocence, she desisted from persecuting me herself, and refused plainly to sanction what they might do against me under her name. This friendly correspondence between the mother of Darnley and his royal widow, must, according to the term of years over which the latter declared it extended, have commenced soon after the death of the Earl of Len- nox in the autumn of 1572. Of its actual existence, the intercepted letter from Lady Lennox to Mary, of which we have had the pleasure of presenting a fac-simile, is an indisputable evidence.^ Those letters which Mary tells the Archbishop " she had received from Lady Lennox, and carefully preserves, containing that good lady's penitential acknowledgments ' of having acted under erroneous im- pressions, when she put forth accusations against her in consequence of bad information, the commands of Queen Elizabeth, and the persuasions of her inimical Council,' " were of course seized by the agents of Walsingham and Burleigh among the other papers and valuables of the captive Queen, 1 Keith's Appendix. 2 Translated from the original French letter in Keith s Appendix. ^ Vol. v., Lives of the Queens of Scotland, p. 373. Engraved by Mr Nethercliffe, from the original holograph MS. in Her Majesty's State- Paper Office', Duke Street, Westminster. 278 MART STUART. at the time all her drawers, coffers, escritoires, and other secret repositories, were broken open in 1586, in quest of evidence of her implication in Babington's plot. It would have been inconsistent with the policy of these systematic enemies of Mary Stuart, who had encouraged and confederated with every false witness among her traitor subjects for her defamation, had they allowed such testimo- nials of her innocence from the pen of Darnley's mother to see the light. No surprise need, therefore, be felt that search for these documents has hitherto been made without success. And here it may not be amiss to remind the reader that Leicester, at the death of the Countess of Lennox, took possession of her papers — a proceeding which gave some colour to the popular suspicion that he had hastened that event by poison, his reputation for such prac- tices being, like Morton's, almost as notorious as that of Palmer in modern times. If ever these papers should be discovered, they would probably elucidate the reason of that lady's change of feeling towards her hapless daughter- in-law, and her honest endeavours to atone for the hasty manner in which she had been deluded into wronging her, by accusations founded on the false representations of those who had benefited by the crime. In consequence of the illness which attacked Queen Elizabeth, soon after the appearance of the comet, and hung upon her all the spring of 1578, reports that it was of a dangerous nature, and likely to terminate in death, deluded Mary into the hope of being speedily summoned from her dreary prison-house to ascend the English throne. At the same time, Elizabeth's precious suitor, Alen^on, thought proper to quit the French Court, on some offence taken with Henry III., formed a sudden friendship with the Duke of Guise, and proposed the Quixotic scheme of undertaking, in conjunction with him, an expedition in behalf of the captive Mary, by landing with a military force in Scot- land, to unite with her loyal adherents there, and, after rescuing her son from the power of Morton, marching into England, where they calculated on being supported by a MAKY STUART. 279 general rising of the Koman Catholics, and proclaiming Mary queen. Their project having been secretly com- municated to Mary by her Ambassador at the Court of France, she replies through the same channel : — " I feel myself infinitely obliged, and cannot thank M. de Alenqon and M. de Guise enough for their desire to aid me and hazard their fortunes for the re-establishment of mine. Although I dare not press them to execute the reso- lution they have formed of passing over with their troops into Scotland, yet, as this offer proceeds from themselves, I must tell them, that the sooner it is done the more likely it will be to prevent this Queen from frustrating them. Moreover, in the event of her death — which many are of opinion is at hand, because of the complication of diseases that are sapping her constitution from day to day — it would be a great advantage to me to have an army so near this place as Scotland, that I might call in to my support. Tell M. de Guise,'' she proudly adds, " that he can freely employ Don John on this occasion. I am confident he will not fail him, but will do his utmost where he is to aid in it, both as. regards the King of Spain his brother, and himself. have no reliance on anything the Pope may do, unless it be out of respect to the King of Spain, and for that reason it will be expedient to request his intercession with his hoHness. In regard to Scotland, it will suffice to obtain the consent of the Earls of Atholl and Argyll, and the heads of their party; for if they treat with the rest, it will get abroad ; besides, the Scotch always do best when suddenly and unexpectedly called into action, than when they are allowed to repose and grow cold during long delibera- tions." ^ Mary continued to dream and write to her faithful ser- vant, Archbishop Beton, about this singular confederacy for the relief of herself and her son, during the whole of that summer, the greater portion of which she spent at Chats- worth, whence many of her letters are dated. The deci- ^ Mary Stuart to the Archbishop of Glasgow— Sheffield, May 9, 1578. Labanoff, vol. v. p. 36-7. 280 MARY STUART. sive victory gained by Don John of Austria over Coign^e, the general of the insurgent provinces, on the plains of Gem- bleurs, followed by a rapid train of successes, excited the general expectation that his next exploit would be the inva- sion of England, and the enfranchisement of the royal bride, who, in trembling hope, awaited his coming to terminate her long captivity. Of all the numerous suitors who had con- tended for Mary Stuart's hand, this chivalric lover, who had sought her alliance in the days of her adversity, was the most worthy of it — distinguished as he was for valour and those transcendent talents which had enabled him to over- come the defects of his birth, and to dazzle Christendom with the brightness of his renown ; but a union so perilous to the cause of Protestantism was destined never to take place. He died on the 1st of October, the same year, at the early age of thirty-two, not without suspicion of his death having been hastened by poison, Philip II. having, on several occasions, betrayed jealousy of his well-earned popularity, and those mental and personal endowments which had thrown the majesty of Spain into the shade. Philip meditated laying claim to the Crown of England for himself, under the plea of being the legitimate heir of the house of Lancaster, and had no desire to see his brother and Mary Stuart seated on the throne of that realm, with a contingent possibility, too, of the Netherlands adopting their beloved governor for their sovereign. But from what- ever cause the untimely death of Don John of Austria pro- ceeded, it is certain that Mary Stuart's last reasonable hope of a triumphant restoration to freedom and regality expired with him. Philip II. continued, as he always had done, to use her name, and the watcLword of her wrongs, to excite plots against Elizabeth's person and government among the disaffected members of the Church of Rome, which did Mary much injury, by exciting the alarm of the patriotic against her ; but it was no part of his selfish policy to render her any efficient service. Mary was removed from Chatsworth to Sheffield Manor- house on the 5th of October. The following sentences,writtea that autumn by her to Pere Edmonds, one of her spiritual MARY STUART. 281 advisers, in reply to the devotional exhortations she had recently received from him, afford a touching proof of the manner in which her mind, wearied with the turmoils of this world, was turning to the hopes of a better. In reference to her sufferings and long captivity, she says : — " I pray with all my heart that it may be to God's glory and the advancement of his Church, rather than for any other compensation I can conceive, the continuation of my long adversities having rendered me oblivious enough of all worldly solace, to seek the true medicine for my woes in the life and death of his Son, our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and more than ever resolved to follow, through the assistance of his grace, the way He has traced for me by his cross, whereof I should be most happy to bear my part in this world, if so be that I might become an inheritor of what He has purchased for me in his kingdom — inherit- ance too precious and inestimable for the price, if it might be procured by the sacrifice of the utmost one could have of all human felicities put together, and separated from those pains and troubles with which they are usually accompanied." * Mary experienced a fresh affliction this year in the death of her uncle. Cardinal de Guise. She had written to him twice before she was aware that he was no longer in existence. Intense anxiety for the fate of her son, then a prisoner in the hands of Morton, occupied the mind of the captive Queen during the winter and spring months of 1578-9. But Mor- ton held his power on a tottering basis. The young King found means to write to his Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Atholl, requesting him to raise troops to effect his deliverance. The signal for a general rising was given. A national burst of feeling pervaded the honest classes; they flew to arms with the indignant cry, " Morton has sold us to the English ; he will deliver our King to Queen Elizabeth." ^ The suspicions regarding his share in the murder of Darnley were renewed. He had risen to despotic power on the ruins of the royal pair, who had been sacrificed in order to create a minority and a regency for the benefit of his fellow-traitors and himself. The eyes of the people appeared fully opened to 1 The fact that Pere Edmonds had been in Edinburgh at the time of Darnley's murder, and a witness of Mary's distress on that occasion, adds peculiar interest to their correspondence — Labanofi", vol. v. p. 72. 2 Scott's Hist, of Scotland. Aruot's Edinburgh. 280 MARY STUART. sive victory gained by Don John of Austria over Coignee, the general of the insurgent provinces, on the plains of Gem- bleurs, followed by a rapid train of successes, excited the general expectation that his next exploit would be the inva- sion of England, and the enfranchisement of the royal bride, whoj in trembling hope, awaited his coming to terminate her long captivity. Of all the numerous suitors who had con- tended for Mary Stuart's hand, this chivalric lover, who had sought her alliance in the days of her adversity, was the most worthy of it — distinguished as he was for valour and those transcendent talents which had enabled him to over- come the defects of his birth, and to dazzle Christendom with the brightness of his renown ; but a union so perilous to the cause of Protestantism was destined never to take place. He died on the 1st of October, the same year, at the early age of thirty-two, not without suspicion of his death having been hastened by poison, Philip 11. having, on several occasions, betrayed jealousy of his well-earned popularity, and those mental and personal endowments which had thrown the majesty of Spain into the shade. Philip meditated laying claim to the Crown of England for himself, under the plea of being the legitimate heir of the house of Lancaster, and had no desire to see his brother and Mary Stuart seated on the throne of that realm, with a contingent possibility, too, of the Netherlands adopting their beloved governor for their sovereign. But from what- ever cause the untimely death of Don John of Austria pro- ceeded, it is certain that Mary Stuart's last reasonable hope of a triumphant restoration to freedom and regality expired with him. Philip II. continued, as he always had done, to use her name, and the watch.word of her wrongs, to excite plots against Elizabeth's person and government among the disaffected members of the Church of Kome, which did Mary much injury, by exciting the alarm of the patriotic against her ; but it was no part of his selfish policy to render her any efficient service. Mary was removed from Chatsworth to Sheffield Manor- house on the 5th of October. The following sentences, written that autumn by her to Pere Edmonds, one of her spiritual MARY STUART. 283 applied for permission to come with her daughter to share the hardships of their captive Queen in her dreary English prisons, and to wait upon her there ; l a proposal which affords the highest testimonial of her faith in the purity of that calumniated princess, who had no worldly advantages wherewith to compensate the followers of her adverse for- tunes for the sacrifices such fidelity involved. Lady Atholl had been present at the fatal ball and masque at Holyrood on the night of Darnley's murder, a witness of the demeanour of the Queen ; and if she had not been fully satisfied of her innocence of any collusion with the assassins, it is scarcely to be supposed she would voluntarily have oflfered to bring not only herself, but a youthful daughter, into close domestic association with her, by becoming members of her scanty prison retinue. Mary eagerly and gratefully accepted Lady Atholl's offer, and entreated Elizabeth to grant permission for her and her daughter to come to her ; but it was per- emptorily refused. The petition for that purpose was frequently reiterated. Meantime the doughty champion Alen^on, notwithstand- ing his recent offer of invading England in conjunction with the Duke de Guise, for Mary's enfranchisement, renewed his negotiations for wedlock with Queen Elizabeth. He sent so agreeable an envoy to plead his cause, that Elizabeth was induced to grant sundry favours to her unfortunate cousin in consequence of his intercession. Among other indul- gences, Mary was allowed to send her French secretary Nau to Scotland as the bearer of her maternal greetings, letters, and such presents as her poverty permitted her to send to her son.^ A vest embroidered by her own hand, a locket with a device composed by her, and executed by a Trench jeweller in black enamel and gold, and, perhaps, to prove that she had not- been forgetful of him in his more childish age, when such a toy would have been acceptable, the miniature train of silver gilt artillery which she had 1 See Despatches of M. de MauvissiSre Castelnau, in Jebb, and Mary's Letters, in Labanoff. * Despatches of Mauvissi^re de Castelnau. 284 MARY STUART. provided for liim four years previously, but not been allowed an opportunity of sending. Even now her envoy, though he came with a passport from Queen Elizabeth, was neither allowed access to the presence of the boy-monarch, because he refused to give him the title of King, nor to deliver the letters and presents Mary had sent, because she had simply addressed them " To my loving son James, Prince of Scot- land ; " although the members of the Scotch Privy Coun- cil, in the temporary absence of Morton, were so moved by the earnest importunity of the youth, that, after much deliberation, they would have conceded the point, but for the officious interposition of the comptroller, who sent to apprise Morton. But the incident will be best related by Mary's own pen. " Every one," she says, " assures me that my son recognises infinitely his devoir towards me, and that the poore chylde dar not show it in the captivity he is, fearing the hazard of his life. He was three divers times at Council, upon the receipt of Nau ' maintaining by advice' that the superscription of my letter bearing without ane other style, ' To my son,' might suffice unto them, and often times asked them ' if the title of King stayed him to be my son and I his mother ? ' in such sort as the Council had once yielded unto him, and Nau would have been the next day admitted without the messenger, whom Tulli- bardine made run that night to Morton, advertising him that all the Council did favour that visitation if he came not with extreme diligence to impesche (prevent) the same by his presence, and in effect Morton made such haste that, although thirty-six miles off, he arrived two hours after dinner at Stirling, where suddenly appearing he made them answer, that ' if the said Nau would come again from me giving my son the title of King, he and his Council should receive him with all favour ; but that without this recognisance, my son would not in any way recognise his commission.' Hereupon Nau made means that a gentle- man who was with him might kiss my son's hand, but my son had no sooner laid his hand on this gentleman's shoulder, than he was drawn by the sleeve in such sort that he could not speak unto him one syllable only. By this may every MARY STUART. 285 one know the fear these traitors have of my son's good nature to me." ^ Nau brought so distressing an account of the restraints to which her son was subjected by Morton, his want of exercise and relaxation, that Mary addressed an impas- sioned appeal on the subject to Elizabeth, representing to her the miserable state of captivity in which both mother and son were detained. She says : " Pardon me. Madam, if the maternal affection I bear to my only son and sole representative, rendering me infinitely solicitous for the preservation of his life, makes me importunate for you to deliver him from the danger to which I perceive he is ex- posed in the hands of the wretch Morton and his faction, the murderers of his father, and traitors and sworn enemies of his mother." ^ Elizabeth took no notice of this appeal, but made a formal complaint to the French Ambassador " of the contemptuous manner in which," she said, " the Queen of Scots had spoken of Monsieur the Duke of Anjou (as her French suitor Alengon was now entitled), and desired his Excellency to write to the said lady and communicate her displeasure on the subject." ^ Mary protested, in reply, "that the report proceeded from some malevolent falsifier, for she had too much affection and respect for the royal family of France ever to speak amiss of any of the princes with whom she had been nurtured and brought up, and allied in marriage with the eldest ; and that as for Monsieur, she loved him no less than if he had been her own brother, and had never spoken of him otherwise than with the affection and respect that were his due ; and that she had always hoped for better treatment from her good sister, if that marriage took effect." Elizabeth, when pressed by the ambassador to give up her authors for Mary's alleged contempt, said that " the Countess of Shrewsbury had affirmed ' that she and her hus- band's servants had heard the Queen of Scots use very unbefitting language of Monsieur.' " On Mary discussing this with the Earl and Countess, they ' Queen Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, Chatsworth, July 4, 1579. LabanofF, vol. v. p. 96. 2 LabanofF, vol. v. p. 103. ' Teulet. Labanoff, vol. v. p. 109. 286 MARY STUART. were greatly surprised at an assertion so contrary to the honourable terms in which she had always spoken of the prince, and united in assuring her they would testify the same in writing. Mary sarcastically observed, in her -letter to Mauvissiere, " that it would be easy for Walsingham to send some of his people to examine and cross-question them on the subject, as she was denied the privilege of coming up her- self to the Court, to disprove the false imputation that had been imposed on her/' An unexpected change took place in the affairs of Scot- land this autumn, in consequence of the influence acquired there by Esme Stuart, Lord of Aubigny, the nephew of the late Earl of Lennox. He had been brought up in the service of France ; but having obtained letters of recommendation from his friend the Due de Guise to various members of Queen Mary's party, he came to Scotland, succeeded in gaining access to Stirling Castle, and forming a personal acquaintance with the young King his relation, and soon won his love and confidence. He strengthened himself by making an alliance offensive and defensive with James Stuart, son of Lord Ochiltree, brother-in-law to Knox, and captain of the royal guard, and soon organised so strong a party in the palace and council, that the youthful monarch practised his first exercise of regality by making him Earl of Lennox. That the influence of this near relative of the murdered Darnley on his royal cousin was used in Mary's behalf may be surmised by the tenor of the afl'ectionate letter, simple though it be, which James wrote to apologise to her for not having been permitted to see her messenger and receive her letters. One of her presents, however, had, we find, reached him : he says, — "Madame, — I entreat you very humbly to believe tliat it was not with my good-will that your secretary returned without delivering your letter to me, or communicating what you had commanded him to tell me, having felt much regret at what occurred in regard to him. I shall, in truth, be infinitely grieved if it could be supposed that I did not bear towards you the honour and duty which I owe you, hoping that in time God will give me grace to offer you my good and loving services, knowing full well that all the honour I have in this world is from you. " I received the ring you were pleased to send me, and will take great MARY STUART. 287 care of it, out of honour to you. I send you another, which I very humbly entreat you to receive from me with as good a heart as 1 take yours. You made it appear very plainly by your last letter how good a mother you are. If you should hear any more of that which I have just begim, you are humbly entreated to apprise me through the Earl of Lennox, that I may endeavour to do the best I can to bring the same to good effect. We also supplicate you to assist and to give your good counsel and advice, which I will entirely follow. Deem it most certain, that in all things in which it may please you to command me, you will find me your very obedient son, " Kissing your hands most humbly, and praying God to preserve you, I am your obedient son for ever. « James R." i The royal boy adds this naive postscript : — " Madame, — I commend to you the fidelity of my little ape, who never stirs from me. I will often send you news of us." " To the Queen of Scotland, my honoured Lady." This letter, apparently the first written to Mary by her son, was never destined to gladden her sad eyes, for it fell into Elizabeth's hands, and though it contained nothing but the natural expressions of love and duty from a warm- hearted boy of thirteen to his only surviving parent, she cruelly detained it from the bereaved mother, who in her doleful prison-house was vainly sighing for one word of filial affection from her only son to cheer her desolate spirit, with the assurance that the holy ties with which nature had united her and him had not been severed by the evil reports of her calumnious foes. It seems difficult, indeed, to conceive a motive for withholding so simple a missive from Mary, unless peradventure the English Queen and her Council suspected that a deep state secret lurked under the childish com- mendations the juvenile monarch bestowed on his little ape, and that some subtle agent of the Pope were signified by that name. Mary, as we have already stated, often composed alle- gories and Impresas to convey her meaning, but they were always of a mournful character. In the year 1579 she de- vised and caused several medals, applicable to her own melancholy condition, to be struck in silver. The most touching of these symbols, and, as they have now become, ^ This letter was written in French, and is preserved in the State-Paper Office. 288 MARY STUAET. memorials of her sorrowful estate, is that with her own por- ^ trait, half-length, holding an open book with this sentence : " 0 God grant patience in that I suffer wrong ! " sur- rounded with this pathetic distich : — " Who can compare with me in grief] I die and dare not seek relief." On the reverse, a hand holding a heart, ready to join with ' another, having this rhyming inscription, addressed appa- rently to her son : — '•' Hurt not the heart, Whose joy thou art." Even her silver counters were engraved with emblemati- cal devices, bearing reference to the state of her mind, and . moralisations on the mutability of fortune.^ But the mor- alising of Mary Stuart was not confined to allegorical meta- phors ; an original unpublished MS., written by her hand, occupying nearly fifty-two pages, is preserved in the State- Paper Office,^ being the commencement of an essay on the uses of adversity, illustrated by examples from sacred and classic history and Scripture texts, furnishing abundant evi- dence of her piety and philosophy, and that in learning and literary genius she was not inferior to her illustrious cousin. Lady Jane Gray. A selection of the most striking pas- sages cannot be otherwise than acceptable to readers who desire to form their estimate of Mary Stuart's character from authentic sources of information, instead of permitting themselves to be deluded by the unverified assertions of her political libellers. Let those who have been accustomed to regard her as a compound of levity, folly, and guilt, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the lessons of Christian philo- sophy penned by her in the solitude of her English prison, unnoted of any observer save that Omniscient witness, whose eye had been on all her actions, and who she believed would one day make her innocence manifest. " I have thought," commences the royal author, "that I could not better employ ray time, to avoid indolence, now that ' Four of these interesting relics are in possession of that accomplished antiquary, Albert Way, Esq., F.A.S. * Among the current documents of the year 1580. MARY STUART. 289 I am deprived of the power of exercising the charge to which God called me in my cradle, than by descanting on the diversi- ties of affliction ; nor can I be justly censured for choosing such a theme, seeing that no person of this age, especially of my quality, has had greater experience therein. It will at least furnish the kindly disposed with matter to exercise their charity and fulfil the commandment which enjoins us ' to weep with those who weep/ While those afflicted, like me, who shall hereafter read this little treatise, may learn from the examples of persons who have suffered similar trials, that the best remedy has ever been found in turning to God, who always invites them to do so. But as there are various kinds of adversity, some of which affect the interior or nobler part of man, more poignant and difficult of enduring ; others the body, which are less so, I intend, in order to avoid confu- sion, to treat of all in turn, commencing with the most in- tolerable, which has sometimes led to a miserable end those who, becoming hardened in their afflictions, have forsaken God, and being in turn abandoned of Him, have incurred the guilt of self-destruction^ Of such I shall take pains to bring instances, both from Scripture and ancient history ; also to cite the examples of distinguished personages in modern times ; and, on the other hand, of those who, being visited in like manner with similar troubles and adver- sities, have received them in a proper spirit, as the just and wholesome chastisements of the good God and Father whom they had often grievously offended ; and thus their afflictions here have served them as a penance to prove their virtue, as the pure gold is refined from the dross." She dwells with pathetic eloquence on the case of those who, finding themselves falsely aspersed, and impatient ot undeserved obloquy, had so far forgotten God's promises to deliver the innocent from all reproach, and despairing of His justice, stained themselves with actual crimes, such as mur- der or suicide. " O heart ! " she exclaims, " too proudly covetous of the shadow of honour, for which thou sacrificest the true honour ! not remembering," she in another place observes, " that the real dishonour to be avoided is sin." VOL. vii. . T 290 MAKY STUAET. She censures " the impatience of Scipio Africanus and of Coriolanus for allowing their indignant sense of personal wrongs to injure their country, the one by withdrawing himself into voluntary exile and depriving her of his services, and the other, in a far more blamable manner, by bringing a foreign army against her, and thus for ever sullying his glory ; since to be called a good citizen is the noblest i title of honour a man can gain, save that of a good Christian" — a sentiment worthy to be emblazoned on the tomb of this much misrepresented princess, of whom the barbarous age in which she lived was not worthy. After citing, in illustration of her observations, a variety of examples, both from holy writ and classical lore, she calls attention to a long-forgotten historical occurrence of the thirteenth century, which not only affords a proof of her deep erudition, but as an instance of false witness, esta- blished by forgery, bears too remarkably on her own case to be omitted. " I will now speak of Christians,"' she says, " and among others, one of whom I speak from recollection, not having read of him for a long time. His name was Pierre des Vignes,^ chancellor of the empire — a man from low degree, but at the same time of such good understand- ing and learning that he was found capable of occupying that important charge, and supported it so well that the Emperor Frederick II., on account of his competency and fidelity, gave him full credit and authority to make and unmake whomsoever he would in his Council. But, a thing of frequent occurrence in courts, some of the great nobles combined to effect his ruin by means of forging letters, and suborning false witnesses, who basely accused him to the Emperor of having had intelligence with Pope Innocent, his (Frederick's) great enemy, to whom they pretended he had betrayed his master's secrets, and communicated his letters. ^ Pierre des Vignes, or Peter of the Vines, was a beggar boy, in the arms of a vagrant mother, when Frederick II. encountered him in one of his , early adventures. Pleased with the liveliness of the infant, he had him educated. The boy, as he grew up, showing great abilities, was advanced by his imperial master till he became chancellor of the empire, when the tragedy occurred which Mary describes, evidently not without thoughts of the forged letters brought against herself, and of the combination of the Scotch nobles against David Eiccio. • MARY STUART. 291 The Emperor, too hastily believing this calumny, caused his eyes to be put out. The unfortunate man who had suffered this wrong, finding himself despised by every one, and deprived of all the rewards and honours his faithful services had so well merited, took it so much to heart, that of a good cause he made a bad one; for, being unable to live on in such ignominy and evil repute, he had himself led to the place where the Emperor, as he entered the church, could see him, and there incurred the name of a self-slayer, in his despair, to his eternal disgrace, by dashing his head against a pillar so violently as to cause instant death/' This horror of suicide, though in full accordance with the tenets of a church which denies Christian burial and all obituary rites to persons guilty of that offence, seems strange from the pen of one who had threatened to lay violent hands on herself ; for thus it will be remembered had Mary done in her frantic despair the morning after her abhorrent nuptials with Bothwell. It must, therefore, be regarded as a proof of^ how much more tolerable to her was a life of exile and personal suffering in a dreary English prison, than conjugal companionship in her own royal palace of Holyrood with the man who has been described by her political libellers " to have been the object of her pas- sionate affection." Speaking of revenge having been considered commend- able when provoked by personal injuries, she exclaims: " 0 act unworthy of a Christian ! to whom not only is it not permitted to murmur at the rod of God, but who is even bound to think that he has deserved far worse ; and that, instead of being a dishonour to him, it is a call to self-amendment by penitence, for there is no guilt that cannot be thus effaced, seeing that God hath told us, 'though our sins be more red than scarlet, if we will turn to Him He will render them whiter than snow,' and that if we are in- nocent, our recompense will be the greater, and our glory more excellent, for having patiently supported the cross He has assigned us." In reference to her ideas of personal responsibility, she cites the parable of the talents from 292 MAEY STUART. the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke, adding in Latin the text from St Paul, " All Scripture is written for our learning." After praising humility as the mother of virtue, and de- precating pride as the exciting cause of much crime, she recommends " that, in practising the one and avoiding the other, care should be taken not to fall into pusillanimity, unmeet for generous minds such as theirs should be who, by divine Providence, are called to bear the sceptre and command over the people of God." With this noble obser- vation the fragment suddenly breaks off, and the rest of the paper is occupied with texts and notations of appropriate portions of Scripture, some in Latin, and others in French, intended for quotation in illustration, as may be presumed, of the continuation of the task she had marked out for the profitable employment of her prison hours. Obdurate, indeed, must be the prejudice against Mary Stuart, that could resist the evidences of her love to God and holy resig- nation to His will, contained in the lessons she was prepar- ing for the benefit of future sufferers ; and cold would be the heart that melted not while pondering on the selections from Scripture traced by her hand as the sources whence she had drawn the comfort she desired to offer to others. Among these are the prayer and lamentations of Jeremiah for his people ; the lamentations of David for his son, and for his own banishment ; the complaints of Job ; the Lord weeping over the grave of his friend Lazarus ; His excla- mation on the cross, " Eloi, Eloi;'' His divine invitation, " Come unto me, all ye that are burdened;" and his consol- ing promise to the afflicted, " Blessed are they that mourn." Mary has written some of these in Latin, but far the greater number in familiar French, from memory — a proof how intimately she was acquainted with holy writ, and how deeply imbued with its spirit. I MARY STUART CHAPTEE LVII. SUMMAKY Mary's comfortless state at ShefiSeld Castle — Her maternal solicitude — Mauvissi^re intercedes with Elizabeth in her behalf — Mary's intimacy with the family of her keeper — She is invited secretly to stand god- mother to their grandchild — Her christening present — Her love for Bess Pierrepont, Lady Shrewsbury's granddaughter — Educates her her- self—Affectionate letter to her French goddaughter — Disputes about Mary's maintenance — Shrewsbury's complaints — Leave extorted to take Mary to Buxton — Accident befalls her at setting out — Rigorous seclu- sion while at the Baths — Mary's charity to a cripple — Mary forced to remain at Sheffield Castle during a pestilence — Morton arrested for Darnley's murder — Elizabeth's interference in his favour — Mary ap- points the Duke de Guise Lieut.-Gen. of Scotland — The commission intercepted — Warrant for her forcible removal to Ashby-de-la-Zouch — Her dangerous illness prevents its execution — Her meagre Easter — Attempts to embroil Mary with Shrewsbury — She is unable to walk from debility — Pines for air and exercise — Comforted by her son's letter — Her intention of resigning her claims to him — Elizabeth sends Beale to dissuade her — Deplorable state in which Beale finds Mary — Death of her sister-in-law, Lady Charles Lennox — Unrestrained malice of Lady Shrewsbury — Beale's second visit, and deceptive negotiations — Mary is permitted to revisit Buxton — Mauvissi^re asks for her house at Fontainebleau — She gives it to the Duke of Guise — Her son seized by the Earl of Gowrie— Mary's dangerous illness — Supposed to be dying — Re- markable letter to Elizabeth. The commencement of the year 1580 found Mary closely immured within the walls of Sheffield Castle, sick, anxious, sorrowful, and in want of all necessary comforts, even of wearing apparel, and without money to supply herself with 294 MARY STUART. 1 what was requisite. She writes thus to her representative in Paris,! on the subject of her wardrobe requisitions :— «I am so ill supplied with dresses, that I have been compelled to write to Madame de Mauvissiere in the mean time to send me wherewithal to make a robe and a soutane. Money is also necessary, as you are aware, for tokens and presents, for which purpose I was in great need of it on the last day of the year. You will receive also an order for ten thousand livres to , be sent to me, for I intend to lay by that sum in reserve every year against some ocdfcsion of importance where it may probably stand me in good stead. Have the dresses made by Jacques de Senlis, whom I intend to serve me in the place of the late John de Compiene, and for that purpose I made him take the measure of all my habiliments at his last coming hither. Mademoiselle du Nuyer can relieve you the trouble of buying the linen] silk thread, and all the other little requisites she is accustomed to send me." » The anxiety Mary suffered on account of the dangers to which her son was exposed among the conflicting parties and interests in Scotland, aggravated her bodily sufferings. Sometimes she fancied that the political outcry Morton had raised about Lord John and Lord Claud Hamilton's designs on the Crown was founded on fact, and wrote to the Arch- bishop of Glasgow angrily of those loyal friends who had suffered so severely in her cause. At other times she was persuaded that the new Earl of Lennox had treasonable . intentions of destroying her son, and supplanting her by ' usurping the throne of Scotland, although he was de- nounced by the English party as an emissary of the Pope and the Duke of Guise for her restoration. Enclosed within the walls of Sheffield Manor-house and its surrounding woods, guarded from the approach of every living creature ' who could give her correct information of the affairs of her own nation, unless indeed those who were instructed to mislead her, how was it possible for her to form a proper judgment of what was going on there ? " The Government of my son," writes she to Archbishop Beton, « begins to be very displeasing to the Scotch, who i accuse him of being too young and volatile. This is a proof of the ill-nature of those who cannot endure to be imder any legitimate authority— yet they have patiently suffered the cruel and tyrannical yoke of the most wicked and detestable 1 Mary to Archbishop Beton, Feb. 20. » LabanofiF, vol. v. p. 121-22. MAEY STUAET. 295 persons among themselves/' She bitterly adds, " that were it not for the sake of her religion, and her desire for the preservation of her son and those who have remained faithful subjects to her, she would not give herself the slightest trouble about Scotland — even if by so doing she might be restored to the sovereignty of that nation the next day/'^ In one of her letters she expresses a fear " that if her son were sent to England, Queen Elizabeth would marry him to his infant cousin, Arabella Stuart, or, perhaps, to some illegi- timate daughter of her own" ^ — the Countess of Shrewsbury, and other evil-tongued gossips having persuaded her that Elizabeth was the mother of unlawful offspring, for whom she desired to reserve the regal succession. From Mary's secret correspondence, it appears that she was accustomed to transmit and receive letters and parcels from her Continental friends through a vessel belonging to the Earl of Shrewsbury, that traded to Rouen and other foreign ports. Walsingham having discovered this by means of his spies in Shrewsbury's household, and that Jail- heur, a Norman seaman, was the charg4 d'affaires employed on these occasions, caused him to be arrested on his return from a voyage, on the 4th of May, just as he was on the point of going on shore, and searched; but, through the favour of the master, he contrived to rid himself of two perilous packets, addressed to Mary by her faithful servant, Archbishop Beton, and nothing of any consequence was discovered.^ Both these packets reached Mary safely after a few days' delay, with the intimation, " that neither Jail- heur nor his confederate in her service could be sent to France any more, but that another, equally trusty and intel- ligent, might be employed for the like purpose." * In this same month of May (1580) Lord Talbot, Shrews- bury's eldest son, in reply to some jealous cross-questioning from Queen Elizabeth as to persons being permitted access 1 Labanoff, vol. v. p. 24. « Mary Stuart to the Archbishop of Glasgow, April 10, 1578.— Laban- off, vol. V. p. 25. » Labanoff, vol v. p. 151. * Queen Mary to Archbishop Beton, Sheffield Manor, May 20. 296 MARY STUART. to her royal prisoner, whom it was her desire to seclude from every eye, assured her Majesty " that he for one had not seen the Queen of Scots for many years/' ^ There was, however, more intimacy between Mary and the family of her jailer (whom she politely terms her host) than was at all consistent with this statement, as the following letter from her to Archbishop Beton testifies : — ■ " Monsieur de Glasgow, — I am much distressed that I have nothing here to serve me for a present at the baptism of the child of the Countess of Shrewsbury's daughter, who is married to the son of my host, to which I am secretly invited as godmother ; therefore fail not to send me, with all possible diligence, a double martin, with the head, collar, and feet of gold, enriched with divers precious stones, to the value of four or five hundred crowns ; or if that cannot be got so soon, send me a serreteste collar and chain for the neck, and bracelets of gold, enriched with precious stones, of the value also of five hundred crowns. You may judge what importance this is to me, both for my honour and other matters. Address the whole to Arnault, and let me have it promptly and without fail." ^ Queen Mary had previously honoured the Countess of Shrewsbury by becoming godmother to Elizabeth Pierre- pont, the offspring of the marriage of her eldest daughter, Frances Cavendish, with Sir Henry Pierrepont. The royal captive lavished unbounded affection on little Bess Pierre- pont, treating her not only as a favoured godchild, but as a beloved daughter. She educated her herself, made her sit at table with her and sleep on the same pillow ; in short, having been bereaved of her only child, the tender crav- ings of maternity in that loving heart found an object in the pretty little one whose innocent smiles and endearing prattle solaced the gloomy monotony of her prison-chamber. The sternest prohibitions of Queen Elizabeth against any lady being permitted to " lie in " in the same house where the Queen of Scots was kept, had not prevented the re- peated occurrence of such transgressions, to her great dis- pleasure ; but her indignation would probably have trans- ^ Lord Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury — Lodge. ^ LabanofiF, vol. v. p. 166. The parents of the infant whom the captive heiress of England had been solicited to present at the baptismal font, were Gilbert Talbot, the second son of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Mary Cavendish, the daughter of his Countess by her favourite husband Sir William Cavendish. MARY STUART. 297 ported her into some signal act of vengeance against the offending parties, had she been aware that ties of love and spiritual kindred were sometimes contracted between the captive Sovereign and the infant descendants of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury who were born under the same roof with her. The maternal interest with which Mary Stuart regarded the children for whom she had acted as sponsor, is pleasingly exemplified by the following pretty letter, addressed by her to the daughter of her old friend M. de Mauvissi^re : — " My Goddaughter, mt Beloved, — I am glad to perceive in your letters proofs of the perfections with which God has endowed you in your early youth. Seek, darling, to know and serve Him who hath given you such grace, and He will multiply blessings upon you. I earnestly implore that He may do so, and grant you His favour. I send you a little token from a poor prisoner to remind you of your godmother. It is but a trifle, but I send it as a pledge of my affection for you and your family. It was given me by the late King (Henry II.), my kind and revered father-in-law, when I was very young, and I have kept it till now. Think of me kindly, and look upon me as a second mother, for so I would wish to be. Your very affectionate "Marie." " Sheffield, January 26." i Shrewsbury, who was almost as weary of Sheffield as Mary, seconded her representations of her need of change and the use of the Buxton waters for the restoration of her health, by asking Burleigh to use his influence that leave might be granted to remove her first to Chatsworth and then to his house at Buxton. Instead of the desired permission, he received an angry refusal, which provoked him to ventilate his vexed spirit by complaining of the niggardliness of her Majesty's dealings in regard to the allowance for Mary's diet, " the great inconvenience to which the unpunctuality of the payments put him, besides the cark and care he had personally endured in his un- thankful office for the last twelve years."" ^ Elizabeth in- timated, in reply, " that it was her intention to reduce his allowance for the diet of the Scottish Queen ; " to which Shrewsbury thus responded : — ' Labanoff. 2 Shrewsbury to Burleigh, Sheffield, July 9, 1680— Lodge. 298 MARY STUART. " Assuredly I do think it very strange that there should be any motion] to abridge the same ; for that, when I did first receive my said charge, it ia most true I yielded thereunto to share the desire I had, -without respect of peril to myself or poor estate, to do her Majesty service, and not for the hope of gain or profit that I might expect by her Majesty's allowance being diminished and brought to half the rate which before was allowed at Bolton. I do not know what account is made of my charges sustained in keeping this woman, but assuredly the very charge of victual of my whole household, with the entertainment I do give my household servants, is ' not defrayed with the allowance I have from her Majesty ; besides the which, I dare be bold to say, the wine, the spice, the fuel that are spent in my house yearly, being valued, come not under £1000 by the year; also the loss of plate, the buying of pewter and all manner of household stuff, which by them is exceedingly spoiled and wilfully wasted, stand me £1000 by the year. Moreover, the annuities I have given to my servants, to the end to be more faithfully served by them, and to prevent any corruption that by want they might be provoked unto, come to above £400 by the year. Yet do I not reckon the charges to all these soldiers I keep over that her Majesty doth allow for them, which being but sixpence per day, may well be considered that men in household being employed in such painful and careful service will not be so entertained. I do leave out an infinite number of other hidden charges which I am driven unto by keeping this woman, for troubling you over long ; but I trust that her Majesty, of her own consideration, will so well think of these things, that she will not abridge anything of that which she hath hitherto allowed." ^ The French Ambassador had in the mean time made such pressing instances to Elizabeth in the name of his Sovereign, that Mary might be allowed to visit the baths of Buxtou for the benefit of her health, that the long delayed permis- sion was accorded. A painful and alarming accident befell poor Mary in the outset of her journey, which is thus described by her own pen:^ "As ill luck would have it at Sheffield, those who were assisting me to mount my horse let me fall backwards on the steps of the door, from which I received so violent a blow on the spine of my back, that for some days past I have not been able to hold myself upright. I hope, how- ever, with the good remedies I have employed, to be quite well before I leave this place." Shrewsbury tells Burleigh that he arrived with his charge at Buxton on the 28th of July, and in reference to her ^ Lodge, vol. ii. p. 181. * Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, Buxton, August 10. MAEY STUART. 299 accident, says : " She had a hard beginning of her journey, for when she should have taken her horse, he started aside, and therewith she fell and hurt her back, which she still complains of, notwithstanding she applies the bath once or twice a-day. I do strictly observe her Majesty's command- ment written to me by your Lordship in restraining all re- sort to this place, neither does she see, or is seen by, any more than her own people, and such as I appoint to attend. She has not come forth of the house since her coming, nor shall not before her parting," ^ — no very cheering prospect for an invalid worn down with a com- plication of bodily sufferings, aggravated by anxiety of mind, and rendered chronic by want of air and exercise, and daily discomforts. Mary, however, improved in health and spirits as usual at Buxton, a place that always infused new life into her. The town was at that time visited by an epidemic which had just made its appearance in England, attended with pain in the head, and cramp in the stomach ; it attacked her household, and every inmate of the Old Hall in turn, but it spared her. " The Queen of Scots is better in all respects for the baths of Buxton," writes the French Ambassador to his Sovereign, " and but for the fixed inveterate pain in her side, might be called in perfect health." But this favourable progress was not allowed to proceed ; her keeper was commanded to tear her away at the end of three weeks, when she had only gone through half the course of baths and drinking pre- scribed by the physicians, and she was reluctantly brought back to her old quarters at Sheffield. Elizabeth always suspected that Mary's predilection for Buxton proceeded from her enjoying opportunities of communion with ecclesi- astics of the Church of Eome, who privily resorted to that secluded nook among the mountains. Eichard Topcliflfe, so notorious in the reign of Philip and Mary for his bar- barity to the unfortunate reformers, having changed his creed to suit the Court religion, and directed his persecut- ing energies to recusant-hunting and denunciations, gives the following account of a confidential communication to ^ Lodge. 300 MAEY STUART. Shrewsbury from the lips of his Sovereign, with which he was honoured on that subject : — ^ " I was so happy lately, among other good graces, that her Majesty did tell me of sundry lewd Popish beasts that have resorted to Buxton from these countries in the south since my Lord did come from thence. Her Highness doubted not but you regard them well enough, amongst whom there is a detestable Popish priest, one Du Main or Durande, as I remember, lurking in those parts after the ladies." ^ Shrewsbury was himself too sorely tormented by the misrepresentation of spies and tale-bearers to feel disposed to act on these hints by annoying any of the strangers who resorted to his flourishing Spa at Buxton, even if he had reason to suspect them of belonging to the class designated by her Majesty and Master Topcliffeas "lewd Popish beasts,'' so long as they were prudent enough to mind their own business, and did not concern themselves with his by at- tempting to intrude themselves on the attention of his royal charge. Notwithstanding the rigid manner in which she had been guarded, and secluded from every eye while at Buxton, he received an intimation of his Sovereign's dis- pleasure on having been informed " that he had given the Scottish Queen liberty to be seen and saluted." ^ Mary's compassionate compliance with the prayer of a poor lame woman who came into the lower court of the Old Hall, and hearing ladies were there, besought some good gentlewoman to give her a linen under-garment, was the cause of sub- jecting the Earl, several months afterwards, when a fictitious version of this simple fact reached Queen Elizabeth and her Cabinet, to very sharp censure for permitting such contra- band deeds to be perpetrated beneath his roof The ex- planation Shrewsbury gives of the manner in which the captive Queen and her ladies contrived, with true feminine ingenuity, in their barred and bolted prison-chamber, to execute their charitable purpose, must have provoked a smile from the sternest Star-Chamber inquisitor who sat in judgment on his letter, for after confessing the unauthorised intrusion of the poor old cripple within the precincts of his lordly abode, and repeating the homely Saxon term she ' Lodge, vol. ii. p. 190. 2 jbjd. MARY STUART. 301 used m her prayer to the good gentlewomen above, he says, " Whereupon they put one of their smocks out of a hole in the wall to her, and as soon as it came to my knowledge, I was both offended with her and ray people for taking letters to her." The Earl boasted of his vigilance, both in pre- venting the like improper doings for the future, and avert- ing the possibility of curious or sympathising gazers from looking on the fair face of the hapless heiress of the Crown, " by taking such order that no poor people come near the house while she was there ; neither, at the second time, was there any stranger at Buxton," continues he, " that saw her, for that I gave such charge to the country about that none should behold her." ^ After this earnest vindication of his excellent performance of his duties as a rigid and uncompromising jailer, he humbly petitions for liberty to remove with his charge to Chatsworth, on account of the infectious sickness that had visited his house at Sheffield.^ The request, reasonable as it was, was sternly negatived, and an intimation of her Majesty's dis- pleasure at it conveyed to him in a letter from Burleigh, stating her objection " to the Queen of Scots going there when his daughter, Talbot, was so near her confinement, and that she misliked any of their children residing with him and Lady Shrewsbury while the said Queen of Scots was in their keeping." Shrewsbury makes the following pitiful remonstrance, through a friend at court, in reply to this tyrannical intimation : — " It seems her Majesty Las no liking our children should be with us (where this Queen is), that should be our most comfort to direct them for our causes, which is a great grief to us. Therefore I pray you, if you shall not think it will be offence to her Majesty, at your good leisure, to move her that I may have liberty to go to Chatsworth to sweeten my house, and that my children may come to me with her Majesty's favour, without offence or misliking of her Majesty, when I think good; else they shall not enter my doors." ^ Being unable to obtain liberty " to sweeten" his own house, which doubtless much required that sanitary pro- cess, Shrewsbury was compelled to remain with his royal 1 Shrewsbury to Burleigh (undated)— Lodge, vol. ii. p. 190. 2 Lodge, 192. 3 Lodge. 302 MARY STUAET. charge in the infected and unsavoury abode at Sheffield all ' the autumn. Under these circumstances it need excite no surprise that she was attacked with a dangerous illness, and required both physicians and surgeons to be sent to her aid. An event, however, occurred in Scotland on the 31st of December, the report of which probably contributed more to her recovery than their prescriptions, or all the medicines in the world. Her great enemy, Morton, when seated at the Council board, in the presence of the young King her son, had been denounced by Captain James Stuart of Ochiltree, the brother-in-law of Knox, as the murderer of her late husband, the unfortunate Darnley. The accusa- tion was made in these words : " My duty to your High- ness has brought me here to reveal a wickedness that has been too long obscured. It was that man," continued he, pointing to Morton, " now sitting at this table, a place he is unworthy to occupy, who conspired your royal father's death. Let him be committed for trial, and I shall make good my words." ^ Morton affected to treat the charge with contempt, and said " that the rigour with which he had prosecuted all suspected of that murder was well known." Captain Stuart sarcastically inquired " how that pretended zeal agreed with his patronage of Archibald Douglas ? That most infamous of men, who was an actor in the tragedy," continued he, " is now pro- moted to the ,highest seat of justice, and suffered to pollute that tribunal before which he ought to have been arraigned for the murder of his Prince." Morton being unable to reply to this terrible and indeed unanswerable home-thrust, drew his sword. Stuart sprang to his feet prepared to meet and repel any personal attack ; but the Lords Lindsay and Cathcart threw themselves between them and prevented an encounter. The Justice-Clerk having declared that on a charge of treason it was necessary for the accused to be warded, the young King placed Morton under arrest, and ordered his guilty accomplice, Archibald Douglas, to be taken into custody and brought to Edinburgh;^ but that noto- ^ Tytler's History of Scotland. ^ Ibid., vol. viii. Spotiswood — Letters of Sir Robert Bowes. MAEY STUART. 303 rious criminal, who had married Bothwell's sister, and was then living on her domain, Morham Castle, fled precipitately; his worthy friend Douglas, Laird of Lang Niddry, having ridden two horses to death to outstrip the royal warrant, and bring him timely warning of his peril, that he might escape to England, where, like every Scotch traitor, he was sure of welcome. Queen Ehzabeth and her ministers, for reasons too glaringly apparent, interposed in Morton's be- half. She instructed her envoys to try first persuasions and diplomatic cajolery, and finally threats, but in vain. Queen Mary wrote, meantime, from Shefiield Castle, on the 12th of January, to her faithful minister, the Archbishop of Glasgow : — " I have had information of the imprisonment of the Earl of Morton, accused of the murder of the late King, my husband, and that this Queen has despatched, in his behalf, to my son, Randolph, Lord Hunsdon, and Sir Robert Bowes, one immediately after the other, while the Earl of Huntingdon is prepared to march to Berwick with ten thousand men to invade Scotland if he proceeds further against the said Morton. I cannot but remark on the evil purpose of this lady and such of her Council as have heretofore cruelly persecuted those who were entirely innocent of the said murder, as myself, the Hamiltons, and several others, would now maintain publicly one palpably guilty of it, found and convicted by his own signature among the principal authors of the crime." ^ With strong maternal solicitude she adds : — " Meantime, let my son be promptly advised to retire to the fortress of Dumbarton if he find himself pressed, that he may retreat to France, or some other safe place, before things come to extremity, his person being of far greater value to me than a hundred realms of Scotland." 2 Believing the crisis was favourable for striking a grand stroke to confound the policy of her foes, Mary executed a commission appointing her cousin, the Duke of Guise, Lieu- tenant-General of the Kingdom of Scotland, and empowering him to open a treaty in her name with her son and the nobles of Scotland. This dangerous document was inter- cepted, and fell into Burleigh's hands, and was doubtless the cause which induced Elizabeth to execute a warrant for removing her from Sheffield Manor to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and transferring the custody of her person from the Earl of Shrewsbury to that of the Earl of Huntingdon. It was 1 Labanoff, vol. v., p. 188-89. * Ibid. 304 MARY STUART. directed to Sir Ealph Sadler, Sir Henry Neville, and Sir William Pelham, charging them to use the utmost speed and secresy in executing the commission which, for their well- known fidelity, was intrusted to them, not allowing either the Queen of Scots or any of her people to know whither they were going to convey her ; " and," continues the warrant, " in case she shall refuse to go with you according to this our direction, pretending sickness or some other im- pediment, our pleasure is that you shall by force place her in some coach or litter as by you shall be thought meet. This being ordered, without any further delay or excuse whatsoever, you shall take your way with her towards Ashby"! This warrant was never acted upon. Perhaps the three knights on whom the chivalric ofiice was imposed by Queen Elizabeth, of dragging, by brutal force, her unfor- tunate sister Sovereign from a bed of sickness to compel her to undertake against her will, and without knowing whither, a long rough journey in the depth of winter, declined becoming the ministers of such unfeminine cru- elty, and no others equally trustworthy could be induced. Mary was, just at this critical juncture, seized with so severe a relapse of the malady which had hung upon her ever since November, that she was not expected to sur- vive ; and it was therefore found more expedient by the arbitress of her destiny to take the chance of her dying quietly in her bed, than in the struggle to resist the inhu- man efforts of rude soldiers to remove her from it, or of the hardships and fatigue of a journey she was so unfitted to perform. Unconscious, meantime, of the peril that had impended over her, the royal captive gives the following report of her indisposition to the French Ambassador :^ " My illness increased much upon me during the last five or six days, during which I have been in extremity, yet unable to obtain things necessary for my health." She requests the Archbishop of Glasgow, in her letter of the 4th of March, to transmit the sum of ten thousand francs ' Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 352— January 16, 1581. 2 Mary to M. de MauvissiSre, Feb. 1581— Labanoff, v. 202. MARY STUART. 305 which she had desired him to set aside for some especial per- sonal necessity that might befall her, and also to purchase for her a ring set with a very fine diamond, of the value of six or seven hundred crowns, and send it so that she might receive it within a month of that date. In conclusion, she says,— " My host has not been able even yet to obtain the payment of what he is assigned for my expenses, and a knight of this district was lately ap- pointed by the Council to come here as his second in command, at which he is so highly offended that he has resolved to be disburdened of me. I shall endeavour to strive against this change as much as I can through my friends ; but if it come unexpectedly, and I find myself suddenly deprived of all means of secret correspondence, remember that in subscribing my letters the word yours, without anything else, will signify that I am in evil and dangerous keeping, and seek earnestly, through the intercession of the King of France, and, failing him, of all the other Christian princes, to get me taken out of it." ' The embarrassment Shrewsbury suffered from want of ready money to provide for the numerous mouths he had to feed, including a garrison of forty ill-paid, discontented soldiers, caused Mary's Easter to be so meagre a one that her report of her prison cheer at this great festival, when all the world keeps carnival, excited the indignation of the Most Christian King, her brother-in-law, so highly, that Mauvis- siere was instructed to deliver a suitable remonstrance to her good sister Queen Elizabeth. Mauvissiere took the opportunity of doing this at the audience granted for a formal announcement of the landing of the ambassador-extraordi- nary for the conclusion of her Majesty's nuptial treaty with Monsieur. Nothing could be more annoying, at such a time, than the echo of a piteous wail from the cell of her royal kinswoman, calling the attention of the princes and nobles of France to the privations and sufferings of their beloved Queen-Dowager in an English prison. Elizabeth, who desired to be accounted the most generous as well as the greatest and most magnificent sovereign in Europe, expressed surprise and anger at Mauvissiere's statement, and of course transferred all the blame to the nobleman who received her. munificent allowance for the entertain- ' Mary to M. de Mauvissiere, February 1681— Labanoff, v. 202. VOL. VII. U 306 MARY STUART. ment of the Queen of Scots ; while Leicester took advantage of the circumstance by endeavouring to excite the ill-will of Shrewsbury against Mary, by writing the following art- ful misrepresentation of her conduct to him : — " My Lord, — There is another report which I understand is come from the Ambassador here by way of complaint against your Lordship, which I know will much mislike her Majesty, that is, your Lordship doth of late keep the Scottish Queen very barely of her diet, insomuch as on Easter day last she had so few dishes, and so bad meat in them, as it was too bad to see it, and that she finding fault thereat, your Lordship should answer, ' that you were cut off your allowance, and therefore could yield her no better.' Assuredly, my Lord, the Ambassador has spoken this, and says he is written to of her to complain to her Majesty." ^ Fortunately for Mary, Shrewsbury, instead of brooding silently over this incendiary communication, discussed the matter with his royal charge at once, in the manner which she thus narrates to Mauvissiere : — " In regard to the expenses of my table, the Earl of Shrewsbury declared to me lately ' that he felt much offended at the complaints which/ he said, * you had made of it on my part in terms especially touching his honour, as one of the councillors of this realm had informed him.' I replied dis- tinctly that I could not believe you had spoken thus, both from the respect and good-will which I knew you bare him, and because you had never had such a charge from me, beyond complaining of my general treatment here, as I could prove by my letters." * She beseeches Mauvissiere to intercede with the Queen her good sister that she may be allowed the luxury of a little air and exercise, either in a coach or a litter. " Being so weak and debilitated, especially in my limbs, that it is not in my power now ; that I find myself better than I have been for the last six months to walk a hundred paces on foot ; and since Easter I have been obliged to be carried in a chair by hand, which is not likely to be continued long, as you may suppose, having so few servants fit for such purposes. Will you renew the request before moved by you for passports for my Lord Seton and Lady Lethington, or others of the like quality, to come over to serve me here, and at the same time for two bedchamber- women, and two valets, not being able, in the state of invalidism into which I have been plunged by the bad treatment I have had for some years past, to be helped and waited upon effectually by so few attendants as I have with me." * In the same letter Mary expresses her desire that a last- ing amity, if it so pleased the Queen her good sister, might ' Lodge. 2 Mary to M. de Mauvissiere, May 1, 1581 — Labanoff, v. 222. 3 Labanoff, vol. v. p. 223. MARY STUART. 307 be established for the time to come between their realms and themselves. " Relying," she says, " on the natural affection of my son, that my credit with him might serve somewhat in this more than when the poor child, under the tyranny of the wretch Morton, was forced to slight the obligation towards me that was born with him ; yet vainly have all my enemies laboured to tear it from his heart, while we were all our lives held at dis- tance from each other." ^ Mary's sad spirit was cheered by her receiving about this time a loving and dutiful communication from her son, accompanied with a present, not indeed the first he had sent, but the only one that had reached her in her prison-house. She tells her faithful servant, the Archbishop of Glasgow, " that her son's letters and token have given her much comfort, and she trusts that in time he will be entirely at her devotion ; if it should be so, she believes that he will not delay her restoration to all that lawfully appertains to her, in which case she should make no difficulty in admit- ting him to a participation in the same, not doubting but her liberation would quickly follow such an arrangement."^ Her life hung meantime on a precarious tenure, and had done so for several months, Walsingham having written to Randolph in the beginning of the year, " that if a hair of Morton's head were touched, it should cost the Scottish Queen her life." ^ The sore sickness, apparently a rheumatic fever, which had deprived Mary of the use of her limbs, and brought her to the brink of the grave, preserved her from the ignoble fate of being offered up as a victim to the manes of that great criminal, when, in defiance of all Elizabeth's efforts to preserve him, the axe of justice was doomed by the son of his royal victims to fall on Morton.^ 1 Labanoff, vol. v. p. 224. * Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, 21st of May — Labanoff. 3 Letter from Walsingham to Randolph, February 9, 1580-81— State Paper OfiSce MS., unpublished. * Morton has not lacked apologists, who maintain that his complicity in Darnley's assassination was never proved ; but even his own confession testifies that the project was revealed to him by Lethington, Both well, and Archibald Douglas, at "Whittingham, three weeks before it was perpetrated; that he listened unreprovingly, and only objected to unite with them him- Belf, " because they could produce no evidence in confirmation of their 308 MARY STUART. The feelings of Mary Stuart may be imagined when she*, learned that her boy, who had not fully completed his fif- teenth year, had performed the filial duty of an avenger, as she had predicted of him ere he saw the light. But a| sword was suspended over her own neck, her cause having become so popular both in Scotland and England since the trial and execution of Morton for Darnley's murder, and the consequent exposure of facts that had before been either carefully concealed, or artfully distorted, to her prejudice, that Elizabeth took the alarm, and, irritated by the discovery of several Eoman Catholic conspiracies, ordered her council to deliberate on the best course to be pursued in regard to the Scottish Queen in order to secure the quietness of the nation. Among the other causes of jealousy which Elizabeth had conceived against her, was the popular prediction promulgated after the death of the Queen of Spain, the fourth consort of Philip II., that the name of his next wife would be Mary, which she was as- sured would be fulfilled by his marriage with Mary Stuart.^ The council met on the 7th of September, and were three days in earnest consultation without coming to any reso- lution, in consequence of the indecision of their royal mis- tress, who could not make up her mind on the preliminary arrangement of settling the place whither her unfortunate kinswoman should be brought for her cause to be heard, the mockery of a judicial process being even then contemplated.^ assertion that the Queen was consenting to the deed they meditated," that he left them to work their will without the slightest effort to preserve the life of their intended victim, though by warning Lennox to take cautionary measures for the safety of his son, he might have done so without incurring the slightest peril to himself. And when the cruel deed, of which he thus admits his undeniable foreknowledge, was perpetrated, he signed a bond to bear Bothwell harmless, to defend him from all pursuit for that slaughter, and to accomplish his marriage with the Queen. Nay, more, did he not colleague with those whom he knew to be principals in the murder — Leth- ington, Archibald Douglas, Balfour, and others ; to throw the burden of their guilt on his unfortunate Sovereign, and also to put a number of sub- ordinate agents to death, as accessaries to that murder, while he caressed, and loaded with rewards and honours, the notorious Archibald Douglas, even to promoting him to the highest seat on the judicial bench ] • Letter of Mauvissiere de Castelnau to Henry III.— Teulet's Collections, vol. ii. p. 451. ^ Burleigh to Walsingham, Windsor, 10th of September 1581— State- Paper Office MS. MARY STUART. 309 Mary had, in the preceding July, been removed to Chats- worth, while the necessary process of "sweetening" Shrews- bury's mansion at Sheffield was accomplished. While there, she addressed a long remonstrance to the King of France on the wrong he had done her, by giving the lordship of Senlis, one of her dower demesnes, to the Duchess of Mont- pensier. She also complained that her woods of Espernay had been cut down and sold ; ^ with a recital of many other grievances, which added a fretting weight of cares to her troubles, and not the less annoying because proceeding from those she had accounted her best friends. Her thoughts and energies were now employed on her new project of establishing an association between herself and her son for reigning as joint sovereigns of Scotland. " Her compulsory abdication, while a prisoner at Lochleven, she had always protested against as illegal, and never would cease to do so ; therefore it could confer no valid title on her son; but if he would unite with her in acknowledging her as the true and only lawful Sovereign of Scotland, she was ready to legalise his authority in the eyes of Europe, as well as her loyal subjects, desiring only, for her own honour and their satisfaction, that her name should be united with his in the government." ^ She wrote to Queen Elizabeth, stating that such an over- ture had been made to her by the Prince her son, through the King of France, and earnestly entreated her assistance in bringing it to pass. In allusion to the broken state of her health she observes, "that her relapse into the same maladies that afflicted her during the preceding year ad- monishes her that the approaching winter may possibly end her life and woes, and that she desired, before her death, to be the means of establishing her son on such terms of friendship with the Queen of England as may tend to the glory, happiness, and repose of the whole isle." She complains of the fresh restraints that have lately been imposed upon her, and that instead of the amendment in her treatment that had been solemnly promised to the last envoys from the King of France, she had been more hardly 1 Labanoffi * Ibid., vol. v. p. 255-258. r 310 MAEY STUART. used than ever ; that she can bear it no longer, being in^ danger of death from it, and having no hope of anything ' better, will endeavour to procure relief in any way she can. Then she passionately adds, — " And at the worst, if my enemies have such credit that they are able to shorten my days by the continuation and increase of my rigorous treat- ment in this prison, and to deprive me of your favour in that which I need implore, I declare to you that I will immediately make over, and resign into the hands of my son, not only my rights in Scotland, but in everything else that I can make claim op pretension to in this world, which no one could prevent me from doing, leaving him to use his own pleasure in regard to them, so that no practices or negotiations may henceforth be attributed to me. After having thus despoiled myself, there will only remain in my enemies' hands a poor, suflFering, languishing body, whereon to exercise their vindictive cruelty, without the power of deriving the slightest politi- cal advantage from its possession." i The precocious talent manifested by James in extricating himself from the thraldom of Morton, and bringing that formidable traitor to condign punishment for his crimes, possibly caused Elizabeth to regard with uneasiness the prospect of his competing with her for the crown of Eng- land, under the claim of being the true representative of Henry VII. After due consideration of Mary's letter, she resolved to divert her from putting her threat into execu- tion, by sending Walsinghara's brother-in-law, Beale, the clerk of the Council, to Sheffield, under pretext of opening a treaty for the restoration of her liberty, but in reality to elicit all the information from her he could, as to her correspondence and influence with her son and the leading powers in Scotland.^ Even his cold heart was touched by the pitiable condition to which he saw the once bright, beautiful, and animated Mary of Scotland reduced. She was confined to her bed with a harassing cough and pain in the side, unable to put her foot to the ground, and labouring under great depres- sion of spirits. She craved the attendance of physicians, and to be permitted to take air and exercise when she should be sufficiently recovered to do so. Beale wrote to advise Bur- leigh to allow the coach that had been procured for her by ^ Mary to Queen Elizabeth, October 10, 1581— Labanoff. 2 Beale to Burleigh, Sheffield, Nov. 16, 1581— Harleian MSS., p. 290. MARY STUART. 311 the French Ambassador to be sent down to Sheffield for her use, with her Majesty's permission for the Earl of Shrews- bury to let her drive in the park and immediate neighbour- hood, proper precautions being adopted for preventing her escape.^ Mary told Beale in one of their conferences, that, although she was not old in years, she was worn out in con- stitution, and " her hair had turned grey," sarcastically add- ing, " therefore no apprehensions need be entertained of her thinking of another husband/' The great object of Beale's mission was to dissuade Mary from her resolution of resigning her title in favour of her son; and he succeeded in inducing her, by flattering her with the hopes of liberty, to make a conditional promise that she would not enter into any arrangement or treaty for that purpose, without the knowledge or consent of the Queen his mistress. A few trifling indulgences were purchased by this concession, and her health improved in consequence. Death visited Sheffield Manor-house in the beginning of the year 1582, and deprived Mary of a loving and valuable friend and connection in the family of her jailer : her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the Countess of Shrewsbury, and widow of Darnley's younger brother. Lord Charles Lennox, departed this life in the flower of her age, leaving an orphan daughter of four years of age, the unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. The proxi- mity of this infant to the throne, to which, after Mary and her son, she was the legitimate heiress, rendered her ambi- tious and scheming grandmother, the Countess of Shrews- bury, desirous of the removal of those obstacles to her aggrandisement. The prudence and good feeling of Lady Charles Lennox, who cherished the deepest respect for the captive Queen, and desired to secure her friendship for her little daughter, had prevented any violent demonstrations against Mary on the part of her mother ; but the smothered flame of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, broke out soon after her death. Mary was favoured with a second visit from Beale in April 1582. He was, as in the preceding autumn, instructed 1 Beale to Burleigh, Sheffield, Nov. 28, 1581— Harleian MSS., p. 290. 312 MARY STUART. to beguile her with deceitful hopes of freedom, and promises < in his own name, for which the Queen his mistress did not mean to be responsible. It would be weary work to conduct the reader through all the paltry devices the mighty Eliza- beth and her agents condescended to practise in their deal- ings with their helpless victim. On the present occasion, Beale told Mary " that her overtures for the establishment of a treaty of alliance were very agreeable to the Queen his mistress, who bore great affection to her, and as a proof of it would allow her to take all the exercise necessary for her health, within the park that surrounded the mansion where she then was, and even beyond it, according to the discretion of the Earl of Shrewsbury; moreover, that the two physi- cians, whose attendance she had requested in the preceding autumn, should be permitted to visit her,"^ — a charity so long delayed that she might have died a hundred deaths in the interim. Liberty for her to send a person to negotiate for her with her son was promised, provided she would engage to use her maternal influence for the purpose of inducing him to make a formal apology to Queen EHzabeth for the great disrespect of refusing to allow her messenger. Captain Arrington, to enter Scotland. Mary made no diffi- culty of doing as required, " being fully aware," as she wrote to her minister. Archbishop Beton, " that her letter would be regarded as a mere empty ceremonial."^ In this her judgment proved correct; for the youthful monarch wrote to Elizabeth " that he was sorry she was displeased at what his regard for the tranquillity of his realm, and a prudential consideration for the safety of his life, had com- pelled him to do, having been informed that the persons whom he had forbidden to enter his realm were notorious agitators, who had been accustomed to excite sedition and dangerous practices among his subjects." ^ This was only the more displeasing to Elizabeth for being the simple truth; nor did the fact of his enclosing a letter, full of expressions of love and duty, to his captive mother, with a request for it to be delivered to her, contribute to dulcify 1 Labanoff, v. 281. Labanoff. 3 Tytler. MARY STUART. 313 the anger of his august godmother at his plain speaking. In consequence of Beale's representations Mary was per- mitted to go with Shrewsbury to Buxton wells on the 15th of June, after the Earl of Cumberland and the rest of the com- pany who had resorted thither to drink the waters, had been compelled to evacuate the place. But, before she had been there a month, she was inexorably remanded back to Sheffield. She experienced, soon after her return, one of those severe relapses of her malady which are the almost invariable consequences of an unfinished course of the Buxton waters and baths. She had, however, the pleasure of receiving a visit from M. de Kuisseau, with letters from far distant kindred and friends. M. de Mauvissiere, the French Ambassador, who had taken a fancy to her pretty house at Fontainebleau, re- quested her to bestow it on him. She expressed in reply her regret at being unable to gratify him, having promised it, three months before, to her cousin the Due de Guise. In her letter to the Due de Guise on the same subject, she mournfully observes : — " I am crossed by so many ills in general, that I am not surprised at these trials which come upon me, in quick succession, and having every day less facility of ridding myself of them, experiencing, at the same time, increasing rigour in her people [Queen Elizabeth's] in refusing me neces- sary things. I see no other termination to these afflictions than that of my own existence; but I remit all into the hands of God; nor ought I to complain, since it will have been in the cause of His holy religion and the accomplishment of His will, to which I make it always my glory to sub- mit my own. My Cousin, as the business about my house at Fontaine- bleau is now ended to your pleasure, it will be to mine also. I shall have the satisfaction of seeing you there, in thought, when it restores to me my happier time ; and I assure myself that you also will there recall the image of your faithful relative, who has loved you so dearly. Above all, I hope that when there you may take an opportunity again of sending me tidings, which are to me as gifts from heaven." ^ Mary had inherited this mansion and estate from the late Queen her mother, Mary of Lorraine ; and as the Due de Guise pretended some claim to it, as part of the family pro- perty not divisible to females, she apparently considered it 1 Pieces et Documens relatifs des Affaires Ecossais, par M. Teulet, vol. ii. p. 491. 314' MAEY STUART. better to surrender it with a good grace than to defend herj rights in a lawsuit. Several years previously Mary had caused her portrait to be painted, with her son, then a little boy, kneeling at her feet in the attitude of imploring her blessing, her right hand being extended over him as if in the act of bestowing it, while with her left she pointed to his ancestral tree, as if exhorting him to prove himself worthy of the illustrious lineage whence he sprang. This painting she had consigned to the care of Lesley, Bishop of Koss, probably as far back as when he took his last leave of her at Tutbury, before he left England in 1573 ; but no opportunity of present- ing this touching memorial and pictorial admonition of his captive Queen and mother occurred till after the overthrow and death of Morton. Its reception exposed James to a public attack from one of the popular preachers in the New Kirk, who thought proper to denounce it " as an espe- cial device of a popish mother to exhort him to walk in the ways of his ancestors, and adopt their idolatrous creed/'^ Another fierce fanatic compared Mary to Nebuchadnezzar, and " thanked God that she had been/' as he exultingly declared, " reduced to eat hay more than twice seven years." Her fare in her English prisons had certainly been at times little better. Not, however, to enter into the details of the passions and intrigues which agitated Scotland at this period, it is only necessary to mention the fact, that on the 22d of August the young King was treacherously invited to Kuth- ven Castle by the head of that family, whom he had just before made Earl of Gowrie, captured, and carried against his will by that nobleman and his armed followers, assisted by the Earl of Mar, Lord Lindsay, and the other leaders of the English faction, to Stirling Castle, and detained as a prisoner while they seized the reins of government.^ Mary's maternal fears naturally exaggerated the peril to which her son was exposed. At first, however, she rallied all the 1 Calderwood MSS— Tytler's Hist, of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 101, 2 See Tytler's Hist, of Scotland, Camden. Letters of Mauvissi^re, in Teulet's Collections. MAEY STUART. 315 energies of her nature in a fruitless attempt to obtain succour for him by writing to her representative at the Court of France to implore her royal brother-in-law to send troops to his aid, under the command of the Due de Guise. She had the vexation of learning that M. de Ruisseau, whom she had intrusted with her letters, was arrested by the Earl of Shrewsbury, and despoiled of them. Fresh restraints were imposed upon her in consequence ; she was forbidden to write even to the Queen of England. Her bodily sufferings, which appear to have been almost forgotten during the agonising excitement of her spirit, on account of the danger of her son, now returned upon her, accompanied with symptoms so alarming, that the English physicians who had been summoned to her assistance reported her case as hopeless. Believing her last hour to be at hand, she determined at least to have the satisfaction before her departure of telling her mind plainly to Eliza- beth by representing the cruelty with which she had been treated, and reproaching that princess with the outrage which had been offered by the English faction in Scotland to her son. She enclosed this letter to the French Am- bassador, with an earnest request that he would present it to the Queen of England, and if, on account of its length, she should decline perusing it, a copy of it was subjoined for him to read to her Majesty, provided he could prevail upon her to listen. To form a proper idea of this remarkable letter, it ought to be read as a whole ; but as it far exceeds the limits of this work, and may be read in the original French elsewhere,^ a few brief extracts may suffice to exemplify the noble spirit in which the captive Queen, writing, as she believed, from a deathbed, asserts the integrity of her cause, and rallies her sinking energies in the hope of preserving her only child from sharing the life-long miseries that had been inflicted on herself. " On that which, has come to my knowledge of the last conspiracies executed in Scotland against my poor child, having every reason to fear the 1 Labanoflf, vol. v. p. 319 to 338— dated ShefiBield, Nov. 8, 1582. 316 MARY STUART. consequence from my own experience, I must employ the little of life and strength that yet remains to me to disburden my heart fully to you before my death, of my just and sad complaints, of which I desire this letter may serve you as long as you survive me for a perpetual testimony engraven on your conscience, as much for my own acquittal to posterity as to the " shame and confusion of all those who, under your encouragement, have so cruelly and unworthily treated me up to the present time, and reduced me to the extremity in which I now am. But as their designs, intrigues, and actions, detestable as they have been, have always prevailed with you against my just remonstrances and the sincerity of my conduct, and the power you possess has always passed for right with men, I will appeal to the living God, our only Judge, who has established us both alike, immediately under Himself for the government of his people. I will - invoke Him, to the close of this my very heavy affliction, to deal with you and me as He will do at his final judgment, according to our deserts towards each other. And remember, madam, that to Him nothing we have done can be disguised by the paint and policy of this world, although my enemies, under you, might for a time hide from men, and perhaps from yourself also, their subtle and malicious inventions and practices. In His name, then, and in His presence, witnessing between us two, I will remind you, first, that by the agents, spies, and secret messen- , gers sent into Scotland while I was there, my subjects were corrupted, practised with,' and incited to rebellion, and to make attempts against my person ; and, in a word, to devise, enterprise, and perpetrate all that has come upon that country during my troubles." In verification of this statement, Mary makes a pointed allusion to the confession she drew from Randolph's own lips in the presence of her Council, when he was confronted with the witnesses who convicted him of his dishonourable proceedings ; and observes, " that instead of being justly punished, he had been rewarded, and afterwards sent to practise the like treacherous game with his old associates against her son." Mary states, and this she would not have ventured to do to one so well acquainted with the proceedings, unless the fact had been undeniable, that the truth regarding ] the fictitious matter, or "impostures," as she contemptuously designates the spurious papers exhibited against her by her rebels, had been fully manifested in the conference to which she had voluntarily submitted to clear her character.^ Nor does she forget to add, " that when some of the principals among them came to repentance, they were persecuted by , ^ Labanoff, vol. ii. p. 323. MARY STUART. 317 Elizabeth, who sent her troops to besiege them in Edin- burgh Castle, when one of the most considerable [Lething- ton] was poisoned, and the other [Kirkaldy of Grange] cruelly hanged." ^ She notices also the disgraceful fact of Elizabeth " having sent an army to the frontier to prevent justice being done on the detestable Morton/' She inquires by what right or reason she is interdicted from receiving intelligence from her realm, and above all from her son ; and complains of the deceptive treaties for the restoration of her liberty with which she has been mocked and tan- talised. In order to remove any pretended grounds for the bar- barity of her treatment, Mary requests that her accusers may come forward with their charges publicly, and that she may be allowed to enter as publicly on her defence; that if found guilty she may be punished, and if innocent re- leased. "The vilest criminals now in your jails, and bom under your autho- rity," continues she, " are admitted to be tried for their justification ; why should not the same privilege be accorded to me, a sovereign queen, your nearest relation and legitimate heir ? I think," she bitterly adds, "that this last quality has been up to the present moment the principal cause of exciting my enemies against me, and of all their calumnies for creating division between us two, in order to advance their own unjust pretensions. But alas ! they have little reason and less need to torment me longer on this account, for I protest to you upon mine honour, that I now look for no other kingdom than that of my God, whom I see preparing me for the best conclusion of all my sorrows and adversities." A maternal appeal in behalf of her son, the repre- sentative of her claims to the royal succession after her death, follows, with a lively remonstrance against a con- tinuance of the intrigues that have been practised against him in Scotland. " I frankly declare to you, that I consider this last conspiracy and innovation as pure treason against the life of my son, the prosperity of his government, and the good of the realm ; and that as long as he re- mains in the state in which I understand he is, I shall neither consider his words, writing, act, or deed, as proceeding from his free-will, but extorted by the conspirators, who, at peril of his life, are making him serve as a mask for them." ^ Labanoff, vol. ii. p. 323. 318 MAEY STUART. Then, reverting to herself, she trulj and pathetically ob- serves — " Your imprisoning me without any right or just pretence, has already destroyed my body, of which you will shortly see the end; and even \ if it linger on a little longer, my enemies will not have much time to glut their cruelty on me. , Nothing remains of me but the soul, which it is not in your power to fetter. Give it room, then, to aspire a little more freely after its salvation, which now it seeks alone, and not this world's greatness." She petitions " to be allowed to have an ecclesiastic of her own church to prepare her for death — a liberty," con- tinues she, " which is granted by you to all the foreign am- bassadors, in like manner as all Catholic sovereigns allow to yours the exercise of their religion. And in regard to myself, have I ever forced my own subjects, when I had full power and authority over them, to do anything contrary to their principles ? " ^ The home-truths in this letter must have been most dis- pleasing to Elizabeth, though she contented herself for the present with sending Beale to admonish Mary " of the im- propriety of which she had been guilty in addressing so many unnecessary complaints to her." ' LabanofF, vol. ii. p. 333. MARY STUART. CHAPTER LVIII. SUMMARY Mary's recovery from her supposed mortal illness — Death of her grand- mother — Eonsard dedicates his last volume to Mary — Address to her in L'Envoye — Her two literary proteges, Eonsard and Buchanan — Conversations between Mary and Beale — Her exultation in the affection of her son — She is taken by Shrewsbury to Worksop — Plants orange- trees there — Pretty letter to her godchild Bess Pierrepont — Eoman Catholic alliance in Mary's favour — Calamities of her friends, Northum- berland and Arundel — Perfidy of Mauvissiere's secretary, Cherelles — He sends Walsingham copies of all her letters — Scandals of Mary and Shrewsbury — Mary involved in the family disputes of the Earl and Countess — The Countess desires her grandchild, Arabella, to become heiress of England — Acts for Mary's destruction — Eeports of Mary's marriage with Philip II. — Mary's last visit to Buxton — Valedictory Latin lines — She is consigned to the custody of Sadler and Somers — She is taken from SheflSeld to Wingfield — Her conversation with Somers by the way — Shrewsbury guards her cortege — Shrewsbury's farewell interview with Mary — He refuses to carry her letters — Elizabeth questions him about Mary — His testimony of Mary's truthfulness — Large garrison at Wingfield to prevent Mary's escape — The prison household there — Mary and her keeper both ill and discontented — Mary allowed to send Nau to London to negotiate a treaty for her liberation — She instructs him to demand re- dress of Elizabeth from Lady Shrewsbury and her sons — His delicate position in regard to Lady Shrewsbury and her granddaughter — Shrews- bury's decided measures for vindicating his own character and that of his royal charge — Lady Shrewsbury and her sons compelled to exone- rate Mary's honour in presence of Queen Elizabeth and Council — French Ambassador's report of their recantation — Anthony Standen, formerly Darnley's page, bears testimony to Mary's honour at the Court of Florence — Treachery of the Master of Gray to Mary. Maky Stuakt was not so near death as her Enghsh physicians had predicted. She had still much to suffer, both in mind and body, ere the dregs of life's bitterness could be 320 MARY STUAET. drained. She struggled through the weary winter of 1582-3.^ The death of her beloved grandmother, Antoi- nette de Bourbon, Duchess-Dowager of Guise, on the 17th of January, deprived her of the melancholy hope she sonae-i times expressed, of being permitted to quit her English prison, and, resigning all the dreams of ambition and dis- tinctions of royalty, to spend the remnant of her days in religious seclusion with that dear relative, whose cherishing love had watched over her in the pleasant days of childhood. Spring came, and found the poor captive still languishing, on a bed of sickness, unable to put her foot to the ground, and piteously imploring to be removed to Buxton; but her keeper could not obtain permission. Mary received, at this dark epoch of her life, a tribute of disinterested homage and respect, from one who had enjoyed her patronage and sang her praise in the golden season of her prosperity. Pierre Kousard, her old master in French poetry and elocution, laid the last laurel-wreath entwined by his elegant genius at her feet in her English prison, by dedicating the beauti- ful volume of poems he published in the year 1583 to her. The concluding lines of L' Envoy e are little known, and will be read with interest : he is speaking of his royal patroness, — " She, courteous, as slie is, 0 happy book ! Receiving thee, with bright rejoicing look And outstretched hand, in gracious tone shall ask, ' How Ronsard is ? and what his present task ? ' Then answer for me — ' No employ can be So sweet to him in life as pleasing thee ! ' " Still a queen in her munificence, Mary spared from her scanty means to send Bonsard a truly royal acknowledgment, in. return for a compliment which she possessed a mind to appreciate. Her present was a casket, containing 2000 1 The autumn of 1582 was remarkable for the reformation of the kalen- dar, and the adoption of N. S. on the Continent, in conformity to the Bull published by Gregory XIII. enjoining it ; but it was obstinately rejected in England, for nearly two centuries, as a Popish aggression. Much confusion in chronology resulted from this cause. The Gregorian, or N. S., was, of course adopted by Mary Stuart, of which the readers of her letters ought to be aware, as there are ten days' difference between her dates and those used by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers. MARY STUART. 321 crowns, and a silver vase, with the device of Pegasus drinking at the fountain of Castaly, with this inscription, " A. Ronsard — L' Apollo a la source des Muses." How different had been the conduct of her false flatterer Buchanan, who had vied with Ronsard in celebrating her charms and virtues in immortal verse, during the halcyon days, " when all men cried, God bless her," and a double meed of popular favour was insured to any poet who took her for his theme, but who, on her reverse of fortune, employed the remnant of the life her goodness had preserved, in in- flicting the cruellest injuries upon her, by becoming her libeller, having sold his venal pen to the usurpers of her government, violating not only truth, but possibility, in the monstrousness of the crimes he imputed to hen — 'whom, while she had aught to give, he had eulogised as an angel and a goddess, whose perfections exceeded all praise! In the month of April, Mary was tantalised with another negotiation, in which promises of the restoration of her liberty were held out to her, for the purpose of eliciting all the infor- mation in her possession regarding the real terms on which she was with her son. Beale was the principal agent employed, but the Earl of Shrewsbury was united with him in the commission.^ One day the Earl, being unable to resist the attraction of a cock-fight which was to be attended by all the country squires, his neighbours, deserted the diplomatic conferences in the chamber of his royal charge. Mary, being left alone with Beale and her French secretary Nau, entered frankly into confidential discourse with Beale. " She had suffered," she said, " many sore afflictions of mind and body ; but she had a great heart, which had enabled her to bear up against all ; but now she desired to be at rest, by the making of some good accord between her son, her good sister, and herself." Beale provokingly told her, " he did 1 Buchanan suffered agonies of remorse in his latter years for the base return he had made to his generous patroness ; and in the imbecility of his dotage, would weep over the mischievous calumnies he had disseminated, and declare his intention to repair, as far as he could, the mischief he had done. — Camden's Annals. 2 Beale to Walsingham, April 17, 1683— State-Paper Office MSS. VOL. VII. X 322 MAEY STUART. not think her project of an association between herself and her son in the sovereignty of Scotland was desired either hy the King or the nobility." — " All there that were mine enemies," replied Mary, " are gone. Those that remain -i will, I trust, like very well thereof. These are principally I to be doubted — Lindsay, Gowrie, Lochleven, Mar, and Angus." Abstaining from a single angry invective against those from whom she had actually sustained personal ill- treatment, Lindsay and Ruthven Earl of Gowrie, she pro- ceeded to discuss their characters and capabilities of per- petrating further mischief. " Lindsay," said she, " is a hasty man, and was never thought to be of any great conduct or wit. The way to win him, is to let him have a few vainglorious words at the beginning, and afterwards he will be wrought well enough." With queenly dignity she added : " In the Act of Association agreed between me and my son, all former offences done unto me are pardoned. Lochleven hath made his peace already ; Mar is my godson, and, in my opinion, like to prove a naughty- tempered boy. Angus hath never offended me, I wish him no ill; albeit his surname hath never been friends to the Stuarts, and I know my son loveth him not. Touch- ing Gowrie, whatever account the Queen my sister may make of him, his letters to the Duke of Guise, by one Paul, who brought a present of horses to my son, prove he would yield to anything. As to my son, he is too prudent to declare himself openly, for surety of his life, being in his enemies' hands ; but I can answer for him. And what will you say if his own letters can be shown to that effect?" 1 This was no idle boast. The young King, then in his seventeenth year, had written these consoling words to his captive mother : " Be assured that in all the adversi- ties I have sustained for love of you, I have never failed of, nor been turned from, my duty and afJection towards you ; but, on the contrary, they augment with every trouble that befalls me. Always I would show that I recognise ray duty » Beale to Walsingliam, April 17, 1583— State-Paper Office MSS. MARY STUART. 323 towards you as much as any son in the world towards his mother." The tender feehngs of the young King of Scot- land towards the mother of whose fond care he had been bereaved in his infancy, were sufficiently testified to the members of EHzabeth's Cabinet by the evidence of other letters, written by him, which they had intercepted and cruelly detained from her. In one of these he tells her " he has received her ring, sends her one in return, and begs her to send him her picture.'' ^ In another interview, Mary told Beale that Monsieur de La Mothe had informed her that " her son was well grown and his marriage could not be delayed above a year or two;" she added, "his father was married when he was but nineteen years old " ^ — an allusion to her murdered consort which she scarcely would have made if aught of self- reproach had been connected with his memory. " As for myself," continued Mary, recurring to her favourite pro- ject — the association, " I am assured of a strong party among the Scottish nobles. I have a hundred of the bonds into which they have entered, to advance my cause whenever any good opportunity may occur." 3 Beale having elicited all the information he could from the captive Queen, who, as usual, told her mind too freely, departed from her for a season. Mildmay then took his place in the commission with Shrewsbury, and carried on the negotiations till the middle of June. When a draft of the articles of the treaty, which had been prepared from Beale's report of the concessions and promises made by Mary, was sent down to SheflSeld, she at once perceived and resisted the attempt to bind her to the most stringent en- gagements, without the slightest advantage in return : — among other things, not to correspond with her son, nor to enter into either treaty or negotiation with him without the Queen of England's knowledge and sanction — " What is this?" she exclaimed; "and wherefore am I fettered with ^ James VI. to his mother, the Queen of Scots, Jan. 29, 1580-81— Un- published State-Paper Office MS. * Beale to Walsingham, April 22, 1584— State-Paper Office MS. » Ibid. 324 MAEY STUART. obligations so unnatural and unjust?" Shrewsbury ex- plained " that it was what she had promised to Beale." " Not so," replied Mary, " my promises never bound me to anything unbecoming a Queen. They were conditional withal, on the faith of his assurance that the Queen his mistress would do what it appears she has no intention of performing/' Shrewsbury observed " that Beale's promises were only on his own idea ; that if she would comply with these terms, the Queen's Majesty would condescend to her requests." ^ Mary remonstrated with Elizabeth about this contemptible quibble, and the negotiation was abruptly discontinued, leaving her, when the fever of hope had sub- sided, in a deeper state of depression than ordinary. At length the cheering tidings reached her in her prison that her son had regained his liberty, gathered his loyal nobles round him, and, without the effusion of a single drop of blood, reduced the leaders of the English faction to submis- sion, by one of those bold and successful enterprises which occasionally decide the fortunes of princes and the fate of empires. Perhaps the heart of the royal mother swelled proudly with the hope that he who, in his boyhood, had effected the fall and punishment of Morton, undismayed by the threats of an English army on his frontier, and had again vanquished the English faction by the over- throw of the Ruthven usurpation, would, ere long, become her own deliverer and avenger. But " the man she had gotten from the Lord " was not destined to emulate the warlike destructives of his race. Called to a better vocation than that of a conqueror, he established his native throne as a peace-sovereign, and healed the wounds of his bleed- ing and impoverished realm, instead of involving it in further strife with his too powerful neighbour. Towards the end of the summer of 1583 leave was ob- tained by Shrewsbury to remove Mary to his Manor of Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, for change of air. Thirty orange-trees were planted while she was there f tradition ^ State-Paper OfiSce Correspondence, May and June 1583 — Lodge. Talbot Papers. Chalmers's Life of Mary Stuart. 2 Unpublished Talbot Papers, in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. MARY STUART. 325 adds, by her own hand. Shrewsbury applied for permission for her to walk in the adjacent forest of Sherwood ; but it does not appear that license was given for these sylvan rambles. The following charming little letter was addressed by her, on her return to Sheffield, to her young favourite, Elizabeth Pierrepont, the granddaughter of the Countess of Shrewsbury : — " Darling,— I have received your letter and good tokens, for whicli I thank you. I am very glad you are so well. Eemain with your father and mother this season, if willing to keep you, for the air and the weather are so trying here that I already begin to feel the change of the tempera- ture from that of Worssop, where I did not walk much, not being allowed the command of my legs. Commend me to your father and mother very affectionately ; also to your sister, and all I know, and to all who know me there. I have had your black silk robe made, and it shall be sent to you as soon as I receive the trimming, for which I wrote to London. This is all I can write to you now, except to send you as many blessings as there are days in the year ; praying God to extend his arm over you and yours for ever. "In haste, this 13th of September. Your very affectionate mistress, and best friend, Marie R." Endorsed—" To my weil-beloved bed-fellow, Bess Pierpont." ' This letter was intercepted ; and, simple and domestic as its purport was, the evidence it afforded of the familiar and affectionate terms existing between the royal captive and the youthful granddaughter of Lady Shrewsbury, might haply startle the mighty Elizabeth more than an intima- tion of some fresh plot against her government, in the de- cipherment of a captured packet from Spain or Kome. It must, at all events, have recalled to her mind remembrance of the sympathy she had herself excited, thirty years before, in the warm hearts of the Warden's children during her incarceration in the Tower — reminiscences inspiring the suspicion that the unfortunate heiress of the crown, whom she, in adoption of the odious Tudor policy, had in her turn imprisoned, had, in like manner, found pity in the sight of the grandchildren of her keeper and his wife. While Mary Stuart was occupying her weary prison- leisure in the feminine amusement of superintending the preparation of a new silk dress for her fair young English ^ Cotton. MS., Vespasian, F. iii, fol. 58. 326 MARY STUART. pet, and writing to London for fashionable trimmings to render it more worthy of acceptance, plots and rumours of plots for her enfranchisement, and elevation to the throne of the Britannic Isles, were agitating England, Ireland, and Scotland, and not them alone. One of the convulsive struggles of Catholicity to regain the empire of Western Europe was, like the thrill of an electric wire, working from Kome through Italy, Spain, and the southern provinces of France, against Elizabeth of England. The King of Spain engaged to make a descent on England with a large army, simultaneously with the landing of the Duke of Guise in Scotland to form a junction with the young King of Scots, whose loyal nobles had promised to bring 20,000 of their vassals and dependents into the field ; and then, with the name and wrongs of their captive Queen for their war- cry, to cross the Border, where they were to be strengthened by a general rising of the Roman Catholics of all degrees/ The Pope promised money, and was liberal of prayers for suc- cess. An unsigned letter, purporting to be from some person in the Scottish Court to Mary, was intercepted, containing allusions to the enterprise, and informing her " that her son approved the plan of the Duke of Guise, that he was willing to venture his own person in it, and desired to be furnished with the names of the English noblemen and gentlemen on whose co-operation he might rely."^ In order to obtain a clue to these, very subtle methods were adopted by Elizabeth's Ministers. " Counterfeit letters," Camden tells us, " were privily sent in the name of the Queen of Scots and her agents, and left in Papists' houses. Spies were sent up and down the country to take notice of people's discourse. Reporters of vain idle stories were admitted and credited. Thereupon many were brought into suspicion ; among the rest, Henry Earl of Northumberland and his son were imprisoned," ^ The Earl of Arundel, the eldest son of the unfortunate Norfolk, was first confined to ' Archives of Simangas. 2 LabanolF. ^ This Earl was the Sir Henry Percy who devised the project for Mary's liberation, by taking her out of a window from Chatsworth ; he was brother to Earl Thomas, who was beheaded for his share in the Northern Eebellion. MARY STUART. 327 his own house, then committed to the Tower. Lord William Howard, his brother, and Lord Henrj Howard, his uncle, were several times examined about letters from the Queen of Scots. Francis and George Throckmorton, sons of Sir John Throckmorton, two ardent but misjudging partisans of Mary, were arrested and sent to the Tower, where Francis Throckmorton was put to the torture. After suffering the rack thrice without making any disclosures, when he was led to it for the fourth time, his fortitude gave way, and he confessed "that two catalogues found in his trunk contained the names of the principal Catholics implicated in the in- tended rising, and the ports at which the landing was to be made. These," he said, " were for the use of Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador, to further the enterprise of the Duke of Guise." Elizabeth ordered Mendoza to quit the country; he obeyed with an air of defiance, and threats of vengeance. Lord Paget — whose brother Charles was a noted emissary of the Roman Catholic faction and the captive heiress- presumptive of the crown — fled with other suspected persons to France on the arrest of Throckmorton. Mary, in her letters to Mauvissiere at this time, expresses great solicitude for the Earl of Arundel. She speaks mysteriously of him as " the Lord in the Tower," but more frequently as " M. de la Tour." " I recommend to you as much as I can," she writes to Mauvissiere, " the poor Lord in the Tower, and all belonging to him. I lament their calamities daily, and wish it were in my power to deliver them, even at the price of a portion of my own blood." ^ Unfortunately for Mary's friends, her letters were frequently intercepted ; but there was no need to take that trouble about those she addressed to Mauvissiere; for Cherelles, the perfidious secretary of that minister, having been bribed by Walsingham, furnished him with copies.^ In one of these Mary expresses uneasiness at not having heard from Mau- vissiere, and naively observes : — " I have little doubt but both my packet and yours are in Walsingham's hands. I find no security in writing by the carrier ; and if all other 1 Sheffield, March 21— Labanoff, vol. v. p. 438. ^ Labanoff. '328 MAEY STUAET. means fail, the best recipe for secret writing is alum dissolved in a little clear water twenty-four hours before it is required to write with. In order to read it, the paper must be wetted in a basin of water, and then held to the fire ; the secret writing then appears white, and may be easily read till the paper gets dry. You may write in this manner on white taffeta or white linen, especially lawn ; and as a token between us to know when anything is written on a piece of taffeta or linen, a little snip can be cut off one of the corners. As to papers which are memorials reverse the M in the word Memoire (pj;)- I will do the same when necessary ; but it must not be done except on occasions of great importance." ' Cherelles, by putting Walsingham in possession of a copy of this letter, which still remains in the State-Paper Office, basely furnished hira with a key to the little feminine de- vices whereby the forlorn captive endeavoured to veil her most private confidential communications with her friends.^ Never, surely, was any poor, helpless, and oppressed woman so completely beset by heartless mercenary traitors. Fowler — one of the secret agents in whom she put great trust, because he had been an old trusted dependent in the family of her aunt and mother-in-law Margaret, Countess of Len- nox, and had probably after their reconciliation been instru- mental in the exchange of letters and tokens between them — had also sold himself to Walsingham. The notorious Archi- bald Douglas too, whom, in spite of her own misgivings and better judgment, Mary had been induced by Mauvis- siere and the King of France, her brother-in-law, to trust and employ in her Scotch affairs, after he had, by a most plausi- ble letter, in reply to her assurance to Mauvissiere " that she would have nothing to do with a man suspected of being ' Mary to Mauvissiere, January 5, 1584. ^ A note from Cherelles, appended to his felonious copy of Mary Stuart's letter to his master, from ShefiSeld, February 26, 1584, in the British Museum, exhorts his suborner " to use the utmost secrecy, lest his practices should be found out by Monsieur I'Ambassadeur. For," con- tinues he, " I would not for all the gold in the world have it discovered because of the disgrace to which I know I should be brought— not only disgrace, but loss of life. I should not, however, care so much for that as the disgrace, for sooner or later one must die."— Harleian MSS., No. 1582, f. 344. How, it may be asked, could a man who feared disgrace more than death condescend to perpetrate a breach of confidence which touched his master's honour, by thus basely betraying the secret corre- spondence of her who had been his Queen, to the heartless oppressors who had cruelly and unjustly detained her in prison for nearly sixteen years, and were hunting for pretexts to take away her life ? MARY STUAET. 329 an accomplice in the murder of the late King her husband/' persuaded her " that he was only culpable in not revealing the fact that the greater part of her nobles, who had ill- will to her late husband, had entered into a band against him, but which he could not do without committing seve- ral of those to whom he was under peculiar obligations." ^ It is not wonderful that Mary in her prison, whose infor- mation must, at all times, have been most imperfect, should have been deceived by the artful misrepresfentations of this specious villain, when a veteran keen-sighted diplo- matist like Mauvissiere was deluded into a fallacy of pro- nouncing him " the ablest statesman of his time, an honour- able and well-disposed man, sincerely devoted to the interests of the Queen of Scots and the only person capable of serving her cause efficiently/'^ Under this mistaken impression, he assisted him with large sums of money, induced the King of France to grant him a pension, and recommended him to poor Mary for loans and gratuities. Her means were not, however, large enough to compete with the bribes and promises of his old friends Walsingham and Burleigh. Reports of a very injurious nature to Mary's reputation became rife in the autumn of 1583, affirming that an improper intimacy subsisted between her and the Earl of Shrewsbury, and that she had even borne two children, of which he was the father. When this scandal was repeated to Mary, she was excessively annoyed, and men- tioned it to Lady Shrewsbury, as the person, next to her- self, whom it most concerned; but that lady only laughed, and " begged her not to be troubled about anything so absurd;" adding, "that she knew it to be one of their neighbour Master Topcliflfe's inventions." ^ The busy per- secutor and denouncer of popish recusants had long been trying to get up some story for Mary's defamation. Lady Shrewsbury considered this invention so ridiculous, that she was accustomed, when in extra good humour, to banter ^ Labanoff, vol. v. p. 455. ^ Mauvissiere to Henry III. — Teulet. Correspondence with Mary, in Jebb. Labanoff. 3 Mary to Mauvissiere, SheCSeld, January 2, 1584 — Labanoff. 330 MAEY STUART. her poor old gouty husband on the subject of his reported amours with the Scottish Queen, and call her " his love/' On one occasion, when Shrewsbury, in obedience to his instructions, removed Mary to another of his mansions in the neighbourhood, while his thrifty Countess remained to superintend repairs and purifications, she wrote a caressing letter to her lord, beginning, " Dear heart," expressing her conjugal desire for his return, and concluding with the affec- tionate postscript, " I have sent you lettuce, for that you love them, and every Sunday some is sent to your charge and you. I have nothing else to send. Let me hear how you, your charge and love, do, and commend me, I pray/'-*- But whether, in consequence of the incendiarism practised by the spies and emissaries of the Court, a root of bitterness was planted between Bess of Hardwick and her lord, or that the extra and unpatriarchal finery affected by old Shrews- bury,^ excited a jealous suspicion in her breast that it was for the purpose of making him more amiable in the eyes of the captive Queen, she became suddenly very malignly disposed towards both, and began to adopt and disseminate the absurd scandals she had previously treated with ridi- cule. Mary wrote thus to the French Ambassador, com- plaining of these wicked inventions : — " I have learned, from the reports that are spread hereabouts, that some of my adversaries have wickedly encouraged even so detestable a fiction as to impugn my honour with the nobleman who has me in ward. This is of a piece with the policy of those who have at all times plotted my ruin, and premeditated by violence or poison to shorten my life, afflicted as it is by their means." ^ In another letter she says : — " I shall not distress myself much about this invention of theirs, for it is a thing that will be considered devoid of all truth and probability by those * Lodge, voL ii. p. 96. ^ " I would," writes he to his agent in London, " that you should talk with the tailor, and devise me some jerkin of thin pretty silk, to wear under my gown or cloke, or else some perfumed leather with satin sleeves, as the fashion is ; wherein I would have you take my son Saville's advice. I would you should remember my chamois leather jerkin and hose ; but I would have no silver nor gold lace upon it, but some pretty silk lace, and — perfumed."— Ibid. 242. 3 Sheffield, January 2, 1584— Labanoif, vol. v. p. 394. MAEY STUART. 331 who have any knowledge of the nobleman in question, and of my own de- portment in this country, which I may say without impeachment has been unassailable. Yet the report having been maliciously circulated among better persons than themselves, who may peradventure desire to learn whether there be any foundation for it, it becomes expedient that it be put down. I therefore pray and beseech you, by the good-will you have always professed to bear me, that, both in my name and (with his approbation) in that of the King my good brother, my ancient ally and protector, you will make an earnest representation to the Queen my good sister, and to the Lords of her Council, of the just displeasure I feel, to the very depth of my heart, at the wrong and inexpressible injury which are inflicted on me in the matter." ^ Then, like distressed royal heroine of the olden time, Mary instructs the ambassador, if other means for her jus- tification be denied, to challenge her unknown slanderer to appear and maintain his words by wager of battle in single combat with some champion of his own rank, who she en- gages shall be ready to prove her innocence of the base scandal that had been promulgated against her.^ Mary Stuart must have forgotten that, although the pomp and pageantry of jousts and tournaments lingered during the showy era of the last of the Tudor sovereigns, the en- nobling spirit of chivalry must have been extinct in Eng- land ere she, a distressed female sovereign, driven from her throne by a faction of barbarous assassins, could have been not only denied aid, but thrust into prison and detained for so many weary years, in defiance of all laws, whether human or divine. At no other period than a Tudor reign of terror would an English parliament have suffered any woman, much less a lady of the blood-royal, and the heiress-presumptive of the crown, to be thus treated ; as- suredly, if there had been a free press, through the medium of which her friends might have made her case known to the people of England, Mary Stuart would not have appealed in vain to their manly sympathies and sense of justice. Of all her wrongs, she appears to have resented her defamation the most. " I charge my son," she says, " to ^ Sheffield, January 2, 1584 —Labanofif, vol. y. p. 396. ^ Probably she intended to employ George Douglas in that capacity; he was then in Scotland occupied in her service. Two very interesting letters — one beginning " My good George " — were written by her to him this year, and are printed in Prince Labanoff 's invaluable collection. 332 MAEY STUAliT. demand redress, not for my particular vindication, but for his own honour. This will be one of my last commands, if I should die before I am righted — there being nothing, whether it be my life or such share of worldly greatness as might hereafter pertain to me, but what I would will- ingly sacrifice for the vindication of my honour." ^ The sus- picion that the calumny was encouraged for a political pur- pose rendered it more annoying to her. " I am informed," observes she, " that one of the Council said, before four or five persons of quality, 'that they knew the report to be un- founded, but it would answer their purpose very well to allow it to go on, as it might be useful in traversing my marriage with the Catholic King.' ^ Mauvlsslere writes to the Queen-mother of Trance : — "The Countess of Shrewsbury is a great enemy to the Queen of Scot- land, and, wishing to accuse her husband, has made her sons by a former maiTiage spread abroad that the Queen of Scotland possessed entire power over him [the Earl of Shrewsbury], and could make him do whatever she pleased, which is not true ; nor can she [Lady Shrewsbury] either estab- lish or prove it, because the said Earl bears no affection to anything but his own interest, and to the two hundred thousand crowns which they say he has amassed since he has been the keeper of the Queen of Scots. The Countess his wife, who has a plotting bad head, may be left in a queer posi- tion in the long run, if the Q,ueens of England and Scotland should come to an agreement, and the King of Scotland be enabled to maintain him- self against the enterprises of his subjects, and continue to manifest his affection for the Queen his mother, which, to the great regret of the Eng- lish, augments every day."' The exciting cause of Lady Shrewsbury's malignant con- duct at this time was a dispute about matters of property with her husband, which had produced anger and estrange- ment between them, and he, unlike her three previous matrimonial victims, refusing to succumb to her imperious will, she revenged herself by pretending to believe the slanderous story invented by Topcllffe for his and Mary's defama- tion, and incited her two youngest sons by Sir William Cavendish to repeat it everywhere, as the readiest method for annoying him.^ Of Mary she was not personally jeal- 1 Lajaanoff, vol. v. p. 396. * Ibid., February 25. * April 9, 1584— Teulet's Collections, ii, 620, 621, ■* Lodge. MAEY STUART, 333 ous, nor had she ever pretended to be so in the days when her beauty was unfaded, her step agile, and her form in the full perfection of womanly grace and majesty. And now that that unfortunate Princess had become a constitutional invalid, passing half her time on a bed of suffering, what, it may be asked, remained to provoke the envy and ill-will of the woman who was thus endeavouring to injure her ? In answer it is only necessary to call attention to the fact that Lady Shrewsbury's little granddaughter. Lady Arabella Stuart, the sole representative of Darnley's brother, was the third in the line of the royal succession, and, failing Mary Stuart and her son, the heiress of the crown ; or, if they could be sufficiently depreciated in popular opinion as to be excluded from their lawful heritage, both might be superseded by that English-born Princess, her own imme- diate descendant, who was brought up under her tutelage. It therefore became, with this ambitious and worldly-wise woman, a matter of selfish policy to depreciate and blacken Mary's character in England, on the same principle that Moray and Lennox had previously aspersed her in Scot- land. Mary had lived down the gross aspersions with which she had been vilified by the artful usurpers of the government of her realm. " The testimony she had given during her long residence in England of her princely virtues and dis- position, by her firm and quiet patience in suffering adver- sity," observes Lesley, " her godly conversation, and the intrepid manner in which she had met the assaults of her enemies, had quite blotted out and deleted all the calumnies and surmises invented and spread abroad for her dishonour, before her coming into England, in such manner," continues her eloquent contemporary, " that now time hath tried truth, the Queen my sovereign's causes are most lovingly embraced by the greatest princes in Christendom, and by many of the nobility, gentry, and commons of England, not only by favour shown in words, but also in the voluntary hazard of sundry of their lives and goods for her honourable advancement." ^ 1 Negotiations by Bishop Lesley — in Anderson's Collections. 334 MAEY STUART. The situation of the captive Queen was peculiarly em- barrassing, for Lady Shrewsbury, having come to an open rupture with her lord, commenced a suit in Chancery against him, quitted his house, and retired to Chatsworth, whence she wrote letters, complaining of him to his Sovereign and her Ministers, Shrewsbury was not slack in making reprisals on his " wicked and malicious wife," ^ as he terms her, by for- bidding such of his sons as had married her daughters by Sir W. Cavendish, and such of his daughters as had married her sons, to go near her, and stopping the allowances of those who disobeyed him. He demanded leave to visit the Court, in order to controvert her misrepresentations, confute her calumnies, and defend his causes; but he was not permitted to stir from Sheffield,^ Elizabeth not having made up her mind whom to intrust with her luckless cousin during his absence. Most fervently did he petition to be relieved from that painful and responsible charge ; but as no one could be prevailed on to undertake so thankless and ungracious an office, he was compelled to retain it for several months longer. In the midst of these turmoils and troubles the shock of an earthquake was again felt at Sheffield, which shook the apartments where the captive Queen was confined. Her women, who all clustered round her, had some difficulty in supporting themselves, by clinging to the furniture.^ When the Countess of Shrewsbury went up to Court to pay her duty to her royal mistress, Elizabeth asked her the meaning of the report touching her husband and the Queen of Scots.* The Countess evasively replied, " that a rumour to that effect had been spread by Master Topcliffe." Eliza- beth shrewdly replied, " that it was impossible to annex any credit to such a story, esteeming her ladyship to be too clever a woman not to have perceived it at once, if there were any truth in it, being always near the Queen of Scots/' She was then pleased to write a gracious letter to Shrews- bury, repeating this conversation, and commanding him to read it to Mary, who expressed her grateful acknowledg- " Talbot Papers. * Ibid. 3 Labanoff, vol. t. p. 453. ' Ibid., p. 448. MARY STUART. 335 ments to Elizabeth, but reiterated her demands that the authors of the scandal should be compelled to confess pub- licly the falseness of their inventions. Mary was permitted in April to see and confer with the Sieur Maron, the Seneschal of Poitou, who came over to England on business connected with her French dower. Little satisfaction resulted from the meeting, for he was accompanied to Sheffield by Wade, one of Walsingham's under-secretaries, who kept the strictest watch over him, and never permitted her to see him alone, even for a mo- ment. It was confidently reported at this time, that Lord Seton's son had proceeded to Bordeaux for the purpose of concluding a matrimonial treaty between Mary and the King of Spain. Mary being informed that Elizabeth was uneasy about it, begged Mauvissifere, to contradict it, and to declare in her name that nothing she had either said or done could have given rise to such a rumour.^ Eliza- beth made an ineffectual attempt to recover her former power in Scotland, by inciting the Lords of the English faction, Gowrie, Angus, Lennox, and Mar, to undertake another revolutionary enterprise against the young King. They did so, and failed, which enabled him to bring Gowrie to the block, and establish his authority on a firmer basis than before, by surrounding himself with his mother's faith- ful friends. This was taken in evil part by Elizabeth and her Ministers, who were also offended by his prohibiting Buchanan's libels and books, written expressly for the defa- mation of his royal mother, which he ordered to be burned, and that none of his subjects should retain the smallest frag- ment of one of them, under thd severest penalties.^ Mary was permitted in June 1584 to indulge her craving desire to revisit Buxton Wells, now more than ever neces- sary for the renovation of her shattered health, symptoms of the distressing malady that had brought the Queen her mother to the grave having appeared, in addition to the chronic rheumatism that agonised and crippled her. The beneficial effect she experienced from this most salubrious of British spas, is thus testified by the royal invalid in a 1 Mary to Mauvissiere, April 30, 1584. 2 Xeulet, vol. ii. p. 663. 83G MARY STUART. letter written to Mauvissifere from that place on the 7th of July : — " As soon as the cure of my arm will allow me to write to the Queen my good sister, I will not fail to return the thanks due to her for the favour she has shown me, in permitting me to take this journey, of which, if the end resemble the beginning, I hope to derive more benefit to my health than I have ever done from any remedy which I have heretofore used even here. It is incredible how it has relaxed the tension of the nerves, and relieved my body of the dropsical humours with which, in consequence of my debility, it had become surcharged." ^ Just at this crisis, the death of the Duke of Alenc^on, and the assassination of the Prince of Orange, left the King of Spain unchecked in his ambitious career, with full power, had he been minded, to work out the pi'ojects that had been devised for Mary Stuart's deliverance. Elizabeth's diplo- matic talents, as usual, prevailed. She renewed the sus- pended treaty for Mary's liberation, and permitted her to remain at Buxton quietly till August, before she ordered her back to Sheffield, A melancholy presentiment that she was quitting for ever her favourite resort, where she had always experienced at least a temporary alleviation of her severe chronic maladies, and occasionally enjoyed a shadow of liberty in seasons when her chain was lengthened, prompted Mary, before her departure, to write, with the point of a diamond, on a pane of glass in the window of her bedchamber in the Old Hall, the following Latin lines, in imitation of Caesar's verses on Feltria : — " Buxtona, quce tepidce celehrabere numine lymphcc, Buxtona, forti, iterum non adeunda, vale / " ^ This specimen of Mary Stuart's classical learning and genius was unfortunately destroyed, about the middle of the last century, in an ill-judged attempt of the then Countess-Dowager of Burlington to possess herself of the brittle tablet on which it was inscribed by the poet-Queen. 1 Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 3. * Translated by Archdeacon Bonney : — " Buxton, whose tepid fountain's power, far famed, can health restore ; Bu.\ton, farewell ! I go— perchance to visit thee no more." MARY STUART. 337 Soon after Mary's return to Sheffield, it was determined to take her out of the Earl of Shrewsbury's hands, and transfer the custody of her person to Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Henry Mildraay, and Mr Somers, who were united in a commission for this important trust. Shrewsbury had been grumbling aud petitioning for many years to be relieved of his unthankful office ; the reason of his being now suddenly superseded in it was the jealousy conceived by Elizabeth on hearing that his first wife's nephew, the Earl of Rutland, had met the nobility of that district, reconciled their feuds, and they had all promised firm friendship to each other for the future/ This peace- conference she suspected must be connected with some secret confederacy in favour of her unfortunate rival, who was regarded with the deepest sympathy and interest in that neighbourhood, which rendered it expedient to remove her without delay. Sadler and Somers arrived at Sheffield, August 25; and as it was intended to conceal the fact from the royal captive that Shrewsbury was entirely discharged of her. Sir Ralph Sadler, when he waited on her the next day, introduced by the Earl, told her " that he was appointed by his Sovereign to take care of her during the absence of the Earl of Shrews- bury, who was going up to the Court." Mary received the intimation calmly, and courteously observed " that she thanked the Queen, her good sister, that she had made choice of an ancient counsellor of her acquaintance to attend her, " with other gracious words, and expressed her- self glad to hear of her Majesty's good health ; adding, " now my Lord of Shrewsbury goeth up to her Majesty, he can inform her of all my doings while I have been under his charge, and I require none other favour than that he say the worst of me he can." ^ Mary's new keepers were commissioned to remove her, with the assistance of the Earl of Shrewsbury, from Shef- field, but whither, their instructions did not specify ; for so many places had been proposed and negatived, that ^ Letter from Mauvissiere to Mary, without date. * Sadler Papers, vol. ii. p. 333. VOL. VII. Y 838 MAEY STUART. Elizabeth had come to no conclusion on this important point. The commissioners did not perceive the omission till after they had been two or three days at Sheffield. Sadler, being much fatigued with his journey, was glad to rest while the Queen's pleasure was ascertained whether the royal captive might be taken to Wingfield Manor, whither Shrewsbury had sent some furniture and provisions. The answer was in the affirmative. The next day, Septem- ber 2, Mary left Sheffield for ever. Her health was so greatly improved by her visit to Buxton, that she per- formed the journey in one day. Somers, whom she had previously known in France, during her early widowhood, rode with her, and by the way she entered into melancholy communication with him, uttering her grief for her long imprisonment. Somers told her, " that if she would leave to practise and have unfit in- telligence with her son, and some evil ministers about him, she might find her Highness her good friend." " As to have intelligence with ray son, and to esteem them whom he maketh account of as his good servants, and recom- mendeth as such to me, I must needs do that," replied Mary ; " for if I should leave my son, who is more to me than anything in the world, for the Queen my sister's favour, which I cannot get, I might so be without both, and then what should become of me? As for my son," added the royal mother, " nothing can sever me from him, for I live for him and not for myself." Then she spoke of her influence with him, and how, if it would please Elizabeth to confide in her friendly offices, she was willing to employ it in establishing a league of amity between them ; for, con- tinued she, " I have my son's own hand yet to show that he offers to be ordered altogether by me in all things," Somers informed her that a conspiracy against his Sove- reign's life had lately been discovered, and that it was suspected she had some concern in it. Mary solemnly denied having the slightest knowledge of any such enter- prise. " I would to God," observed she, " that the Queen my sister knew my heart, which, in good faith, shall never be false to her, so as my son and I have the favour that MARY STUART. 339 appertains, being of her blood, and so near." " Madam," replied Somers, " if you mean thereby any claim after her Majesty, as you have been plain with me, so I beseech you give me leave to be plain with you ; if you or your son speak anything" of that matter, either in the treaty you desire, or by any discourse or message you may send her Majesty, I know you shall greatly displease her and her people, and do yourself no good. Therefore, whatsoever you and your son think, leave off to deal therein, leaving all to God's good will." Somers endeavoured to extract some information on the subject of her son's marriage, and told her he had heard of the Princess of Lorraine, " There had been such a notion," she said, but thought it would not be 5 adding, " that the Duke of Florence had offered his daughter, and a million of crowns with her." " Why, Madam," said Somers, " do you think the Duke would send his daughter from the warm and dainty country of Tuscany into that cold realm of Scotland?" " Yea, I warrant you," she replied. Then he asked about the marriage with one of the daughters of Spain. " So as my son may have the Low Countries withal, that were not amiss," rejoined she merrily; "but who can warrant that?" Thenadded: "Truly, I know of no one there. But I am sure my son will marry as 1 will advise him." ^ Either the fresh air and animating exercise of which Mary was so fond, had enlivened her spirits, or she availed herself of that opportunity of probing the feelings of her new keepers, for she playfully asked Somers, "whether he thought she would escape from him if she could?" He replied, " he believed she would, for it was natural for every- thing to seek liberty that is kept in subjection." " No, by my troth," said Mary, " ye are deceived in me, for my heart is so great that I had rather die in this seat with honour than run away with shame." " I would be sorry to see the trial," rejoined Somers. Then she asked him, " if she were granted her liberty, whither he thought she would 1 Notes made by Somers of talk between himself and the Scottish Queen riding from Sheffield to Wingfield, 2d September, 1584— Sadler's State Papers. .340 MARY STUART. go?" " I think, Madam, you would go to your own in Scotland, as is reasonable, and command that," he replied. " It Is true," said Mary, " I would go thither indeed, but only to see my son, and give him good advice. But unless her Majesty would give me countenance and some main- tenance in England, I would go to France and live there among ray friends on what little portion I have there, and never trouble myself with government again, nor dispose myself to marry any more, seeing I have a son; nor would I tarry long, nor govern, where I have received so many evil treatments, for mine heart could not abide to look on those who did me that evil.^ Shrewsbury, and eighty of his household servants, besides the band of forty men-at-arms who guarded the captive Queen, brought up the rear. He tarried five days at Wingfield to assist in establishing her new keepers there, and instructing them in the very stringent regulations that were adopted to prevent her escape or rescue. On Sunday evening, Sep- tember 6th, when he came to take his leave of her, accom- panied by Sir Ealph Sadler, he uncourteously objected to become the bearer of letters she requested him to deliver to the Queen his mistress, because of their illegible appearance. Mary mildly explained " that her evil writing was caused by having strained the middle finger on her right hand." Finding him still reluctant, she turned to Sir Ralph Sadler, and prayed him to have them conveyed. The cautious old statesman would not undertake to do so till her secretary Nau read them to him.^ Shrewsbury and Mary parted that night after fifteen years of domestication. The next time she saw him was in her chamber at Fotheringhay Castle, where he came with the Earl of Kent to bid her prepare for death. Soon after his arrival in London in the autumn of ]584, Elizabeth sent for the Earl of Shi^ewsbury, and inquired his advice on the subject of the treaty for the liberation of the Queen of Scots, and her association with her son. The ' Notes made by Somers of talk between himself and the Scottish Queen riding from Sheffield to Wingfield, 2d September, 18S4— Sadler's State Papers. 2 Mauvissiere to the King of France, October 22, 1584— Teulet, ii. 686. MAEY STUART, Earl answered as briefly as he could ; then she toil- " that his queen was her whom he had in his own hov.. and that he was half fig, half raisin." In reply to this taunt he gravely replied, " that he had no queen but her- self, and acknowledged no other ; nor should he have ever known the lady to whom she alluded, had he not been compelled to undertake a charge, from which he had very often petitioned to be discharged, as he did now most ear- nestly." Elizabeth on this prayed him not to take what she said in ill part, and made particular inquiries as to the disposition of the Queen of Scots, " whether she bore her great ill-will, and if he considered any reliance could be placed on the promises of that Princess? " Shrewsbury cautiously excused himself from answering any of these questions till Elizabeth expressly commanded him to give his opinion. This he briefly, but emphatically, delivered in these words : " I believe, that if the Queen of Scotland pro- mise anything, she will not break her word." Thus did Shrewsbury, after fifteen years' domestication with Mary, bear the like testimony of her truthfulness, as Darnley had formerly done. The next time a demand was made by the banished Scotch lords of the English faction for money, Elizabeth observed, " I would much rather confide in the faith of the Queen of Scots than embroil my- self any more with their seditions ; " and for several days she continued in the same mind. " It has been told me," continues our authority, " that the secretary of the Queen of Scotland is coming hither to negotiate for her libera- tion, and that, according to appearance, the Queen of England wishes to be rid of her, and would rather send her back to her son than retain her in this realm for fear of fresh disturbances, for she says there ought not to be more than one Queen in England." ^ The capture of the Scotch Jesuit, Crighton, at sea, and the marvellous recovery and decipherment of the papers he had torn into small fragments, and cast into the foaming billows, alleged by the decipherer to contain evidence of a ' Mauvissifere to the King of France, October 22, 1584— Teulet, ii. 687, 688. MARY STUART. project for a Spanish invasion, and designs against .e Queen's person, caused ibo famous association of her nobles and principal ;- ' for the preservation of her life to be entered h''''- aggestion of the Earl of Leicester. All ! • ' " ' ' cO this association pledged themselves ■ death all persons conspiring against her lo exclude from the royal succession any per- ,ccnding any title to the crown in whose favour such enterprise should be made.-^ Walsingham sent a copy of the association to Sir Ralph Sadler, with the intimation, " that her Majesty would like well that it were shown to the Queen his charge, and that good regard were had both to her countenance and speech after the reading thereof/' ^ Mary listened attentively, and frankly offered to subscribe the association herself, as far as it engaged to punish any one who should devise, counsel, or consent to anything tend- ing to the harm of her Majesty's person.^ While at Wingfield, two hundred and twenty gentlemen, servants, and soldiers, were employed to guard this one help- less woman. Every night a watch of several armed men was set within the house, the gentleman-porter being stationed with four or five soldiers at one ward, and divers soldiers at the other. Eight soldiers were perpetually pacing outside the house, four of whom watched under the windows of her apartments ; there were also soldiers quar- tered in all the villages about.* Mary's personal retinue had gradually increased through the favour of the Earl of Shrewsbury, from the sixteen persons to whom it had, at the time of Norfolk's second arrest, been reduced, to eight- and-forty ; but then this number included ten children who had been born to the married couples in her train. She had now also an ecclesiastic, named De Prean, in her suite, who is mentioned by Sadler as " her almoner." De Prean, the two secretaries, the physician, and the master of the household, dined together before the Queen, and were allowed a mess of eight dishes, the reversion of ^ Sadler's State Papers, ii. 481, 482. » i^j^j.^ 445. 2 Ibid., 430. * Ibid., 413. MARY STUART. 343 which went to their servants. Sixteen dishes were allowed for the Queen's dinner. The females in her train are enu- merated by Sadler as " six gentilwomen, two wives, and ten wenches." The ladies dined together, and the reversion of the nine dishes allowed for them passed to the two wives and children. Five dishes were allowed to the serving- maids. The proportion of wine consumed by the Queen and her household is stated by Sadler to be about ten ton a-year, less, considerably, than half the quantity mentioned by Shrewsbury. -"^ Mary was then possessed of a coach and four good horses, and six horses for the gentlemen of her household. Fifteen chambers were occupied by herself and her attendants — very close stowage, it must be acknow- ledged, for eight and forty people, two out of the fifteen being appropriated to her own use. The autumn proved unusually wet and cheerless this year, and not only Mary, but her keeper, old Sir Ralph Sadler, fell ill with catarrhs and rheumatism. No atten- tion was, of course, paid to her complaints. Those of her keeper, and his earnest petition " to be relieved of his office, and allowed to leave a place which, on account of the coldness of the country and foulness of the roads,'' he said, " deprived him of the exercise necessary for the pre- servation of his health," were deemed worthy of considera- tion by Walsingham ; and, on his representing the same to Elizabeth, she promised to take some resolution for his relief, and to send for Lord St John of Bletsoe, to whom she intended to commit the charge of her captive cousin. But as neither entreaties nor threats could induce that nobleman to undertake the office to which he was appointed, Sadler was reluctantly compelled to continue where he was, till it pleased her Majesty to transfer both him and his royal charge to Tutbury Castle, where, it will be seen, they got into much worse quarters than those of which he so bitterly complained at Wingfield. Mary, in more than one letter, requested the French Ambassador, in proof of the pernicious license in which Lady Shrewsbury indulged her tongue, to intimate to 1 Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 428. MARY STUART. EU?M)etli that she had spoken many unbecoming things of iier Majesty also. Now, as Ladj Shrewsbury was one of the ladies of the bedchamber, and had been, when Mrs St Loe, her personal attendant and especial confidant, both before and immediately after her accession to the throne, Elizabeth was naturally uneasy at the idea of either her revelations or inventions, and earnestly required her cap- tive cousin to inform her what it was Lady Shrewsbury had said. The notorious letter, imputed to Mary, recapitulating the odious details that errant scandal-monger had reported of the furious temper, personal infirmities, and indelicate con- duct of her royal mistress, is supposed to have been written in compliance with this demand. But even if Mary, under the intolerable provocations she had received from both, suffered herself to be transported so far beyond the bounds of good taste and good feeling, to say nothing of prudence, as to pen a letter, which her own sense and knowledge of the world might have convinced her would never be forgiven, there is no reason to suppose it was ever received by Eliza- beth. Those who, like Dr Lingard and Prince Labanofi', believe it to be a genuine document, have surmised that it was written by Mary under feelings of strong excitement, but not sent, and being found among her papers that were seized at Chartley, fell into Burleigh's hands. But inas- much as it bears no analogy to Mary's style, or the really queenly letters she wrote to Elizabeth demanding repara- tion for the calumnies Lady Shrewsbury had circulated of her, we are more disposed to regard it, notwithstanding its alleged resemblance to Mary's autograph, as one of the cunningly- devised impositions of that critical period, got up by Walsing- hara and his staff of accomplished forgers, when Mary's life hung on the balance, for the purpose of exasperating Eliza- beth against her beyond the possibility of forgiveness, and overcoming the last struggle of misgiving conscience. The following passage from one of Mary's undoubted letters to Elizabeth on the subject of the scandal, exemplifies the dignified strain in which her appeals were couched : — " Awaiting then in good faith your answer on this, I will only supplicate you in the interim, according to your honourable promise, to let me have MARY STUART. 345 redress from the Countess of Shrewsbury, while she is near j'Ou, for the many false reports w^hich have been spread by her and her children, of me and her husband ; nor will I ever cease from my demands till I receive full satisfaction. And for the honour I have in being so nearly related to you, besides the rank to which I was born^ I venture to consider it as a matter that touches yourself." ' Early in November, Mary obtained leave to despatch her French secretary, Nau, to London, to negotiate the treaty for her liberty with Elizabeth, in conjunction with her son's Ambassador, the Master of Gray, the French Ambassador having consented to act as mediator in case of differences arising. Nau performed the journey on horseback, with five mounted attendants. This was considered, by the Eng- lish officials in the castle, parade unsuitable to the fallen fortunes and scanty means of his royal mistress. He tra- velled under the charge of Sir Ralph Sadler's cousin, Mr Darett, and some of their servants.^ Sir Ralph kindly granted Curie and Bastian leave to bear him company as far as Nottingham, sending, however, a confidential person and his master-stabler with them to see that they did not make improper use of the indulgence. So great a liberty had not been accorded during the fifteen years of the Earl of Shrewsbury's jailership. They were allowed to stay out all night too, and enjoyed the recreation of returning through a village where a horse-fair was held, and rode up and down through it as boldly as if they had been a pair of Derbyshire squires. Old Stringer, the Earl of Shrewsbury's steward, could not refrain from writing to his lord to express his astonishment at such unwonted license being granted to any of the Queen of Scots' people, who had hitherto been no less prisoners than herself.^ Nau was four days in travelling to London, where Mr Darett lodged him in a place which Sir Ralph Sadler calls " Brutes Street," for one night, and took him next day to Kingston, the Queen being then at Hampton Court.* He possessed the advantage of a fine person and courtly manners, and received so gracious a reception, that Mary was infinitely cheered by his reports of the good- will and ^ Labanoffj vol. vi. pp. 34, 35. ^ Sadler's State Papers. ^ Sadler's State Papers. Labanoff. 346 MAEY STUAET. friendly intentions professed by Elizabeth towards her. He submitted a list of concessions in the name of his royal mis- tress, which literally left room for no further demands. But all was unavailing, Elizabeth's ministers having decided that Mary should never leave her prison-house alive. Elizabeth, however, detained Nau for several weeks, under the pretence of deliberating on the propositions, Mary, after waiting im- patiently nearly a month, wrote to remind her " that she had not yet been favoured with her decision on the articles sub- mitted by Nau ; neither had she heard from him or any one else on the subject of the treaty ; therefore she suspects her letters could not have reached him ; for which cause she takes the liberty of enclosing one for him, which she hopes her Majesty will have delivered. She concludes in these pathetic words : " May God give you as many happy years as I for the last twenty have had sorrowful ones ! — Wing- field, this 8th of December, the forty-second anniversary of my birth, and the eighteenth of my imprisonmerit." ^ Nau had been especially instructed by Mary to demand, above all things, from Elizabeth, that the Countess of Shrewsbury and her sons should be compelled to appear before her Majesty and the Council, and either prove or recant the scandal they had promulgated against her. This was rather a delicate commission for him who was in love with Lady Shrewsbury's granddaughter, Bess Pierre- pont, and engaged, unknown to Queen Mary, in a clandes- tine courtship with that young lady. It is certain, however, that he discharged his duty in regard to his royal mistress unselfishly, and at an auspicious moment ; for the Earl of Shrewsbury having commenced very determined measures for the vindication of his own character, and the punish- ment of his slanderers, both great and small,^ Elizabeth found it expedient to comply with the demands of her unfortunate captive, seconded by those of the French Ambassador in the name of the royal family of France, to summon Lady Shrewsbury, her sons and servants, before the Council, where, after a long investigation, having no 1 Labanoff, vol. vi. pp. 67, 68. * Wright's Elizabeth — Serjeant Fleetwood's Letter. MARY STUART. 347 evidence to adduce in support of the calumny, tliey declared on their knees " that it was a false and malicious invention/' and denied on oath that they had ever said or repeated any- thing of the kind. They signed also a written affirmation " that the Queen of Scotland had never, to their knowledge, borne any child or children since she had been in England, nor deported herself otherwise, in honour and chastity, than became a Queen and princess of her quality."^ Mauvissi^re, who was present at this scene, makes the following report to his Sovereign : — " I have this day informed the Queen of Scotland of what she has desired and sought for upwards of a year, which is, that the Countess of Shrewsbury and her sons by her first marriage, have been heard and exa- mined about the reports they have spread through this nation against the honour of that Queen ; but in presence of the Council they and all who slandered the Queen of the Scots have declared, ' that they have never said such things, nor ever spread or repeated aught that could touch her honour, never having seen or been aware of anything in her deportment unbecoming a Queen, and that they considered those who had spoken ill of her as wretches who had acted most wickedly.' This they affirmed before me in quality of your Majesty's Ambassador, and signed and delivered a written declaration to that effect, which will content the said Queen of Scots almost as much as the recovery of her liberty.'"'^ Nau persuaded Mary that she obtained this long-delayed redress in consequence of his remonstrances, and she subse- quently wrote to Lyggon : — " The Countess of Shrewsbury, I thank God, hath been tried and found to her shame, in her attempt against me, to be the same woman indeed that many have had opinion she was ; and at the request of my secretary, Nau, he being at the Queen of England's court in the month of December eighty-four, the said lady, upon her knees, in presence of the Queen of England and the principals of her council, denied to her the shameful brutes [reports] spread abroad against me." ^ The spirited and persevering efforts of the royal captive in the defence of her honour would probably have availed little, even with the manly support of Mauvissiere, if Shrews- 1 State-Paper Office MS. 2 Teulet, vol. ii. pp. 700, 701. The minute of the declaration made by the Countess of Shrewsbury and her sons, preserved in the State-Paper Office, is much fuller than the brief outline of it communicated by Mauvissiere to his Sovereign. ^ Labanofif, vol. vi. p. 365. r 348 MAEY STUART. bury, whose privileges as an English peer were touched, had not commenced menacing the circulators of the slander with the terrors of the law against " scandalum magnatwm" which brought his precious pair of stepsons and their mother to perceive the necessity of submitting to the humiliation prescribed to them, to avoid the penalties they had incurred. But for their acknowledgment of its false- hood before the Council, and the publicity given by the French Ambassador and the Earl of Shrewsbury to that acknowledgment, this maliciously - invented calumny on Mary Stuart would have been quoted as a veritable fact, for her defamation, by the superficial class of historians who have disgraced their vocation by working up into their nar- ratives of her life the gross libels from Buchanan's mercenary pen, the spurious letters assumed to have been sent by her to Bothwell, and the pretended revelations of French Paris, as if they had been authentic documents. Shrewsbury was minded to have proceeded against Lady Hungerford for repeating the scandal against the Queen of Scots and him ; but Mary, who knew and loved that lady's sister, refused to co-operate in the prosecution, declaring that " she was perfectly satisfied that her own innocence had been fully exonerated, and hoped the evil-speaking reported of Lady Hungerford was untrue." ^ So widely circulated had been the scandal about Mary and her venerable keeper, that Anthony Standen wrote to her from Florence " that it was current all over Italy, inso- much that the Cardinal de Medicis, brother to the Duke, sent for him into his chamber, and asked him in confidence, before no one but the Duke, ' whether it were true.' Standen indignantly replied, ' Such things were only the dreams and malicious inventions of her foes, whose custom it was to spread disparaging reports of her.' He explained the age of the Earl, described the holy tenor of Mary's life, and showed them her letter on the subject; whereat the Cardinal professed himself perfectly satisfied that it was false, and the Duke spoke enthusiastically in praise of her virtue and ^ LabanofF, vol. vi. p. 365. I MARY STUART. 349 constancy in her afflictions, and said he was willing to do as much for her as any prince in Christendom."^ Anthony Standen, in the same letter, tells his royal mis- tress " that the Bishop of Ross had written to him that it was her wish for him to hold himself in readiness to proceed to Scotland on a mission from her to the young King her son, but that would be impossible without the necessary funds, humbly reminding her " that he was the first Eng- lishman who had entered into her service, to which he had been attached for twenty years, without any other reward than sixteen crowns a-month, and no certainty for a morsel of bread for his old age." It will be remembered that Anthony Standen was Darn- ley's English page, who saved Mary's life at Eiccio's slaugh- ter, by parrying Patrick Bellenden's rapier. After the sequel of that tragedy, the assassination of his master, he had re- turned to England with his fellow servants, and on the escape of the Queen, of whose barbarous treatment he had been an eyewitness, he had proffered his services to her, and been employed by her in missions to the Pope and other Eoman Catholic potentates, being of the same religion. It was not every member of her own church on whose principles Mary could rely. Patrick, Master of Gray,^ who had recently been ^ Labanoff, vol. vii. — Appendix, p. 164. 2 Mary's faithful servant, Claud Nau, having apprised her that Archibald Douglas was betraying instead of serving her, she wrote to request Gray ' to communicate the warning she had received from Mauvissiere, charging ]iim to keep it a profound secret from Archibald Douglas. The perfidy of Gray's proceedings will be best explained in the following letter from Cherelles to Walsingham, enclosing a decipherment of that confidential passage : — " Monsieur, — This is half a leaf of the letter which the Queen of Scots has written in cipher to Monsieur Gray, and in a place where, as you will see, the said Queen has written 'that he should be wary of Monsieur Douglas, because he is,' as she says, 'too much at your devotion.' Monsieur I'Ambassadeur was not to permit him to see this. Nevertheless, he has not failed to do so, although my Lord Ambassador (Mauvissiere) effaced and altered it, and made me re-write it quite differently. Now, the said Lord Gray having, as I understand, no person in whom he could confide to de- cipher this letter, he gave it to Monsieur Douglas, who brought it to me to decipher, and I have kept it four or five days. If he had not hurried me so much by coming every day to take away what I had written of it, I should have been very happy to have made a copy of it for you ; but I doubt not he will have shown you the whole, and discussed the subject of the letter with you. The bearer of this (Thomas Phillipps) and I met 350 MARY STUART. accredited as her son's Ambassador to England, professed himself a zealous Roman Catholic, and devoted to her ser- vice. His appointment had therefore been most agreeable to her; but before he even crossed the Border, he had sold himself to the English secretary, and became one of the most unscrupulous instruments for her ruin. yesterday, -when he asked me ' if I had anything new, for it was a long time since I had had the means of serving you.' I told him of this letter, and that I had only this half of it, which he begged me to send to you im- mediately."— Cotton. Lib., Nero, B. vi. f. 364. f MARY STUART CHAPTER LIX. SUMMARY Resolution to send Mary Stuart to Tutbury Castle — Another popish plot denounced — Arrival of Elizabeth's Warrant for Mary's transfer — Mary unwilling to go till Nau's return — Difi&culties experienced by her keeper in obtaining supplies — Arrival of Nau— Delusive promises of favour from Elizabeth — Mary consents to undertake the journey — Her physical inability — Sadler sick also — Refusal of Lord St John to become Mary's jailer— Difficulties of the journey to Tutbury — She arrives at Derby — Lodged at Babington Hall — Mary's endearing behaviour to her widowed hostess — Watchfulness of her keepers — She outwits them by getting letters sent — Strict guard at night at Derby — She arrives at Tut- bury Castle — -Finds bare walls — Want of bedding and curtains— She falls sick again, and her faithful old servant Rallay dies — Mary's distress- Treachery of her son's Ambassador — Sadler reprimanded for taking Mary to see his hawks fly — Her son induced by his Ambassador to conclude a separate treaty — Her agony and resentment — Frightful occurrence at Tutbury Castle — Mary's complaints to Elizabeth — Sir Ralph Sadler will not allow Bess Pierrepont to receive her father's letter — Mary's secretary Nau in love with Bess — Sir Ralph Sadler dis- charged from his office — Mary's new keeper, Sir Amyas Paulet — His harshness and incivility to her — Refuses to allow her to give alms to the poor — Mary's description of her desolate apartments — Fresh offer of Lady AthoU to come with her daughter to wait on her in prison — Mary's new maids of honour — A hasty wedding in Mary's prison — Her marriage gift to Curie and Barbara Mowbray — Mary again attacked with sickness — Bad news from Scotland — Her maternal anxiety for her son. As earlj as the 3d of November 1584, a resolution was taken by Elizabeth and her Cabinet to transfer Mary to Tutbury Castle/ An Order in Council was signed on the 7th of that month, directing Bryan Cave, one of the cofferer's clerks, to proceed thither, and expend the sum of ^ Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 442, 352 MARY STUAET. .£'500 in repairing and making it ready for her reception, it being now in a state of great dilapidation, having re- mained uninhabited for nearly fifteen years. The furniture was oi^dered to be brought from Beaudesert, the forfeited property of Lord Paget. The Earl of Shrewsbury was re- quested to send his plate, and the gentlemen in that neigh- bourhood household linen.-^ The tenants of the Crown were required to supply forty -men-at-arms in addition to the present garrison, for the better guarding of her who was engaged in an amicable treaty with their Sovereign, and daily flattered with the hopes of being restored to liberty. Walsingham also directed, " that for the easing of charges, and the pestering of the house, the master of the household should be moved to take order for the disposing elsewhere of the ten children'' whom Sadler had mentioned in his report of the followers of the Scottish Queen.^ It is easy to imagine that this numerous band of Scotch, French, and Italian infantry, who had presumptuously made their appearance without license from the Queen's majesty or her Council, in Mary's English prisons, did be-pester the castellan, and sorely aggravate his difficulties when put on short allowance; but where did Walsingham suppose Andrew Melville was to dispose of them, without money, in a strange land, unless he resorted to Herodian methods of ridding the house of the unwelcome urchins? The decree for Mary's removal to Tutbury had gone forth the first week in November. The reason subsequently alleged for this rigorous measure did not occur till December, when William Parry, one of Walsingham's agents for nursing and denouncing Popish plots, announced that the Pope had proposed for him to assassinate Queen Elizabeth," and that when he recently returned through Paris, Morgan, a busy refugee priest, formerly one of Mary's secretaries, whose name was connected with every plot, real or pretended, in her favour, " was confederating with the Nuncio Eagaz- zoni for the like wicked design." During the whole of November Mary was confined to her chamber, and principally to her bed, with her old 1 Sadler's State-Papers, ii. 447. ^ Ibid., 450. MAEY STUART. 353 malady, and Sir Ealph Sadler from time to time protested the impossibility of removing her in that state, as well as the unfitness of Tutbury Castle, with its damp bare walls, for her reception. The royal warrant for him to transport her thither arrived, however, on the 4th of December, coupled with an intimation from Walsingham, "that the Queen his mistress would be highly displeased if she sought to delay under colour of pretended sickness ; while on the other hand her Majesty appeared disposed, in case she conformed herself to her will, to extend more favour towards her than had hitherto been done."^ Mary was not only incapable of the journey, but unwilling to stir till after the return of Nau, who was still detained by Eliza- beth under the delusive pretext of proceeding with the treaty. He had meantime come to an open quarrel with the Master of Gray, having been warned by his brother Claud, the Sieur de Fontenaye, that Gray was playing the game of the English Queen and Cabinet against his royal mis- tress, by endeavouring to dissuade the young King of Scot- land against the association of his royal mother with him- self in the sovereignty, as displeasing to his subjects of the reformed faith, and insinuating how much more to his advantage it would be to secure the friendship of the Queen of England by making a separate treaty with her, and abandoning his mother. Sadler communicated Queen Elizabeth's letters to Mary on the 7th of December. She read them, and declared herself willing to conform herself to her Majesty's plea- sure, but wondered she had heard nothing from Nau, and said, " she looked to see him before her removal, after which, however painful it might be to her, she would cheerfully go." Sadler testifies in the same letter, " that the Queen is certainly not in case to be removed by reason of her foot and side.'' The next day, in reference to her anxiety at not having heard from Nau, he observes : "I have much ado to keep her in tune of patience, which is sooner moved in this time of her dolour, not yet able to 1 Sadler's State Papers. VOL. VII. Z 354 MARY STUART. strain her left foot to the ground, and to her very great grief, not without tears, findeth that being wasted and shrunk of natural measure, and shorter than its fellow, fear- ing that it will hardly return to its usual state without the benefit of a natural hot bath/' He mentions " the necessity there will be for procuring a fresh stock of provisions on account of the delay, those laid in by the Earl of Shrewsbury being well-nigh exhausted, and no chance of obtaining more in the immediate neigh- bourhood, already eaten bare by the long residence of so considerable a number of people — no good town nearer than eight miles, and firing very scarce, coal being the prin- cipal fuel, whereof sixteen or seventeen loads were used weekly, which were brought in wains drawn by bullocks through deep and foul ways, and when the river was up, as in great rains was the case, the bullocks had to swim, to the great grudging of their owners." ^ Sadler writes again to Walsingham on the 10th of December, " that if Nau were sent back or permitted to write to his mistress, communicating the Queen's pleasure, as officially notified to himself," a punctilio of royal etiquette, on which Mary seems to have stood, "she would be more will- ing to remove; though," continues he, "her foot remaineth still at a stay, and not like to be well, until it be comforted by warmer weather, or by better means of herbs and drugs, to make fomentations, than can be had to heal among the mountains, where gardens are scarcely known." ^ Derby- shire was anything but the land of Goshen it is now, if reliance may be placed on Sir Ealph Sadler's complaints of its barrenness. He received cold comfort from Wal- singham in his perplexity for providing food, for that minister announced the fact, that " he found the Earl of Shrewsbury," on whom their chief reliance for provisions was, " no way minded to furnish any more." ^ Sadler had, however, in the mean time, prevailed on Mr Stringer, the Earl's steward, to let them have enough meal for horse and man on his own responsibility to last a week : ' Sadler's State Papers, ii. 464. 2 Ibid. s Ibid., p. 470. MARY STUART. 355 but this was only as a drop of water in a thirsty desert. Poor old Sadler writes a notable jeremiad on the 15th of the month to Walsingham, complaining " that the frowardness of his royal charge in refusing to be moved, puts them all to their shifts to make provision, the EarFs store being spent, and no more to be got from his officers neither for love nor money. The cause why she will not remove," continues he, " she allegeth to be the lameness of her leg, and the grief of her foot; but indeed the cause is, she will not till Nau return, nor then neither, I think, and therefore she is like to find it in her diet, and yet we will provide as well as we can ; but do the best we can, we are like to keep a cold Christmas."^ Mary carried her point of not stirring till her secretary was sent back to her. Nau returned to Wingfield on the 29th of December, with so many flattering messages and promises from Elizabeth, that the excitable spirits of the royal captive rose, and though still suffering great pain, and unable to stand or go without support, she professed her willingness to undertake the journey as soon as it should suit Sir Kalph. But now he, poor man, fell sick, as he had pre- dicted he should, from the unwonted anxiety and discomforts he had suffered, and implored piteously to be relieved of his troublesome office. Burleigh sent for Lord St J ohn, who had been appointed as Mary's new keeper, and required him to proceed to Tutbury forthwith, to be in readiness to receive her on her arrival, and take charge of her ; but he replied, " that neither could he, nor would he, go to his own undoing." Burleigh strove with persuasions and threats without effect, and sent first Bedford, then Leicester, to reason with him, but all in vain. Then the Queen issued her peremptory orders, which availed nothing, for he de- clared "he would abide any extremity rather than go." Leicester and the Lord Chamberlain had charge to tell him from the Queen that " she would make an example of him by punishing him for his wilfulness, and then he yielded to her Majesty's commands," he said, "but not with his 1 Burleigh to Sadler, Jan. 1584-85. 356 MARY STUART. own good- will." Elizabeth, however, considered It more pru- dent not to trust a keeper of his temper with so Important a charge, and " declared he should not go even if he would." She expressed great sympathy and concern for Sadler's sickness, and sent word to him "that he should be relieved as soon as he got Mary to Tutbury." ^ Mary promised to be ready to set off on the 11th of January ; but as a quarter sessions was to be holden at Derby that day, which would bring a great resort not only of the county gentlemen, but all sorts and conditions of people Into the town. It was thought expedient to put it off till the 13th. That morning she wrote to Elizabeth to assure her " that she was ready to submit to her pleasure, con- fiding in her favourable and good intentions, and that she was then about to enter the coach to proceed towards Tut- bury." 2 Sir Kalph Sadler wrote at the same time to Bur- leigh : " This day we remove this Queen to Derby, and to- morrow to Tutbury, the ways being so foul and deep, and she so lame, though in good health of body, that we cannot go through in a day ; myself also being more unable than she Is to travel, for that I have not been well this month and more ; nor yet shall, I fear, recover so long as I remain upon this charge, whereof I long to be delivered, when it shall please God and her Majesty." To Walslngham he also writes, telling him " that the whole journey, being sixteen miles, Is too long for one day, and that there Is no other fit way than by Derby, by reason of the hills and woods, and yet this is very evil, and that he has given strict orders to the bailiffs and others at Derby, that there be no assembly of gazing people in the street, but all as quiet as might be." The High Sheriffs of Derbyshire and Staffordshire hav- ing been summoned, by order of council, together with the principal gentlemen in both counties of approved loyalty to Elizabeth, to give their attendance and assistance in the removal of the Scottish Queen to Tutbury, arrived at WIngfield with their servants, — a remarkably thin 1 Burleigh to Sadler, Jan. 1584-85. 2 Labanoff, vi. 86, 87. . MAKY STUART. 357 escort, by the by, for they only amounted to sixteen per- sons.^ When Mary saw them, instead of manifesting distrust, she appeared gratified, and declared herself " much beholden to the Queen's Majesty for the honour she had been pleased to show her, by appointing such grave, ancient, wise gentlemen of that calling and reputation, to accompany her in this journey, and gave them all great thanks for coming." ^ Mary was only allowed to have a small number of the most necessary of her personal attendants to travel with her, the rest of her train, and all the carts and baggage, having been previously sent forward to Tutbury. For- tunately the weather for the journey proved favourable, and Sir Ralph Sadler succeeded in bringing his royal charge on to Derby, a stage of only eight miles, the first day. But even the performance of this short distance was considered a great feat, such was the dreadful state of the roads, which Sadler had had carefully surveyed beforehand, and bridges made, in order to avoid several evil passages, and prevent sticking inextricably by the way.^ Babington Hall, that fine old Elizabethan mansion, with its picturesque gables and clustered chimneys, situated in one of the pleasantest suburbs of Derby, is pointed out by local tradition as the house where Mary spent the night, A sharp intimation of Queen Elizabeth's displeasure being subse- quently conveyed to Sir Ralph Sadler, in consequence of the report of one of the mischief-making spies in his com- pany, " that a multitude of the women of Derby flocked to pay their respects to the Scottish Queen, and that she kissed and received them with gracious speeches," he indig- nantly replied by denying the charge, giving the following interesting particulars of her reception and demeanour. " On her alighting," he says, " he walked immediately before, and Mr Somers behind her, next to the gentleman who bore her train, and that she was received in the little hall by the good-wife, being an ancient widow named Mrs Beaumont, with four otlier women her neighbours. So soon as Queen 1 Sadler to "Walsingham — Sadler's State Papers, ii. p. 485. * Sadler's State Papers, ii. 495. « Ibid., ii. 504. §58 MARY STUART. Mary knew who was her hostess, after she had made a beck to the rest of the women standing next the door, she went to her and kissed her, and none other, saying, ' she was come hither to trouble her, and that she also was a widow, and therefore trusted they should agree well enough, having no husbands to trouble thera/"i After this mournful pleasantry the royal traveller was attended by Mrs Beaumont and her sister into a parlour on the same floor, where she was relieved of her cloak, which Sadler terms "her upper garment and other things put about her, no stranger being admitted." Somers, how- ever, thought proper to intrude himself on the ladies, and to remain while these changes in the Queen's toilette were effected; a piece of great impertinence, doubtless, but of course it was to preclude the opportunity of her confiding letters to Mrs Beaumont or her sister for secret transmission to her friends. In this, however, the ladies were clever enough to outwit him ; for Mr Langford of Langford sent, we find, a packet of letters for Queen Mary, from Derby. The measures adopted to prevent the escape or rescue of the captive Queen that night are thus described by Sir Ralph Sadler : "So soon as she was within her lodging the gentleman porter stood still at the door, to suffer none to go into the house but her own people from their lodgings next adjoining. And there I appointed the bailiffs to cause a good watch of honest householders to be at all the corners of the street and in the market-place, and eight to watch all night in the street whei'e she lodged, as myself, lying over against that lodging, can well testify the noise they made all night." ^ Not a very agreeable lullaby to the sick traveller. The very jealous vigilance with which every little inci- dent on the road was observed and reported, is sufficiently testified by the following notice in Sadler's letter announc- ing his safe arrival at Tutbury with his royal charge : " The same day this Queen came hither, my Lord Stafford passed speedily through this town with three or four in his 1 Sadler's State Papers, ii. 495. ^ jbid., p. 505. MAEY STUART. 359 company, himself plainly apparelled, and stayed at a village two miles hence called Hilton, in an ale-house, while this Queen was passing, where some of my folks espied him in a window. So soon as we were all a good way past, he rode to Burton that night, as one of the village brought me word. His house of most abode is about fourteen miles hence." ^ When Mary and her keepers arrived at Tutbury, they found, as Sadler had suspected, a cold dilapidated house, with little furniture and no comforts. There were few blank- ets and coverlets, and only nine pair of sheets for eight- and-forty people, including the Queen. As for the beds that came from Lord Paget's house at Beaudesert, none but the meanest were left, and they had been robbed of the chief part of the feathers; ten or twelve were minus bolsters. All the good hangings had been sold or stolen by those who had the care of the property confiscated for the Crown. ^ Under these circumstances, and at that inclement season, Sadler's declaration to Burleigh, " that there was some ado to please this company," may easily be believed. " But," continues he, " with some shift and words, to supply, with speed, the necessary wants, the better sort were quieted. I sent to Coventry for some feathers to help many shotten beds, and for some common coverlets and blankets, whereof indeed there is need this cold weather in this cold house, and for some dornix ^ to make common hangings for her gentlewomen's and principal officers' chambers, and to make curtains and testers for her gentlewomen, and win- dow clothes for her chambers, for hither came not one pair of curtains. I have also sent for as much linen cloth, of three sorts, as will make nine pair of sheets, more for a change as is needful. Those already delivered will be ready to be shifted before new can be made, I fear. If that town will not yield us all those things, I must needs send further for the lacks, for fair words and promises will not keep folk warm long."* ^ Sadler to Burleigh, Jan. 21, 1584-85— Sadler's State Papers. ^ Sadler to Walsingham— Ibid., p. 469. ^ A now obsolete woollen manufacture. * Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 89. 360 MARY STUART. Mary appears to have derived benefit from the journey which, bad though the roads were, had broken the dreary monotony of her confinement, by giving her change of scene and the sight of new faces, some of which were, perhaps, kind and sympathising. Her general health was reported by her keeper to be good at this time, also that "she beginneth to go about her chamber with some help, her foot being yet swollen and weak." She desired to have better hangings for her chamber, those brought from Lord Paget's house for her use being unsuitable and unlined ; while, on account of the lowness of the roof, the tapestry sent from the Queen's wardrobe was too deep, almost by half Mary also specified in the list of her wants " a tent of tapestry, double-lined with canvass, for her chamber this was doubtless intended to supply the place of an alcove for her bed to stand in, to guard her from draughts. None, however, of the officers of Elizabeth's wardrobe could com- prehend her meaning, and Burleigh wrote to inquire of Sadler, " whether she wanted it for a traverse or a sparver ? " The old knight could not resolve the question without re- ference to herself, and observes, "that one of her Majesty's large pieces of tapestry is tighted over her bed from one side of her chamber to the other, being seventeen feet wide and thirty-three feet long. Touching the foot-carpets for her chamber," pursues he, " which your lordship saith are named by her tapissirie velours, I know her meaning is to have some Turkey-work carpets to lay about her bed, as she had at her first coming, and these they call tapissirie velours, or rough carpeting; it may be considered how many of them, according to their bigness, will serve to lay about abed."i Two silver chaufrettes, or foot-warmers, a luxury to which she had been accustomed in France, were demanded by Mary, also hangings for the doors of her chamber and her closet ; twelve pairs of blankets ; ditto coverlets, and thirty pairs of sheets. Sadler testifies the patience with which she and her people bore the want of window-cur- tains, hangings, and coverings, in so cold a house, till be ^ Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. MARY STUART. 361 could provide what was necessary from a distance. More- over, when he showed her a book in which the expense of all the additional comforts she had required was computed, " she, of herself,'' he says, " rebated some things from her officer's demands, like a frugal good housewife, observing that ' she wanted nothing superfluous.' " ^ Mary wrote, however, to Burleigh a week after her arrival at Tutbury, complaining that the house where she was placed was very detrimental to her health, especially at that season, and most uncomfortable, being only built of wood and plaster — the wood imperfectly joined, and so badly furnished that those who had the charge of her were compelled to acknowledge " that they had been much de- ceived about it then she adds, " I find myself worse off, both in my apartments and furniture, than I was before ; but they give me hope that it may be remedied, in which I know that an especial recommendation will much avail I particularly desire your good offices about my stud, without which I am more a prisoner than ever. Consider, by your own case, what exercise could be taken by those who have worse legs than you : to that pass have I been brought by lack of exercise, deprived of which I cannot long sur- Vive. * Elizabeth, annoyed at the complaints which reached her from various quarters, addressed a royal letter to Sadler, expressive of " her displeasure on learning how basely her house of Tutbury was furnished at the time of the repair of the Queen his charge thither, and what want there was of things needful, not only for her use, but for one of much meaner quality ; " observing, " that she considered her own honour touched thereby, and the person through whose mismanagement it had arisen, worthy of the severest punishment." 2 Nevertheless Mary continued to reiterate her supplications for hangings to her chamber and her bed, and to ask for a supply of sheets and pillow-cases all that winter, in vain. A few days after her arrival at this cold dismal place, so ill prepared for the reception of a royal invalid, Mary was seized with a fresh access of her painful chronic malady, ' Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. * Labanoff, vi. 91. ^ Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 614. 362 MAEY STUART. and had, at the same time, to deplore the loss of one of the devoted companions of her captivity, Ben^e E-allay, the old- est lady in her household, the last surviving link associated with the bright days of her youth ^ having been with her before her marriage to her beloved Francis, attached to her service through all her vicissitudes from splendour to misery, and the voluntary partaker of the privations and restraints of her English prisons for upwards of sixteen years. The hardships of Tutbury at this inclement season of the year probably caused her death. Sadler having received a letter from his Sovereign for Mary, kindly observes : " I forbore to deliver it to this lady until the next day, because I heard she was in great pain by her old griefs, and also much troubled in mind for the late departure of her old servant, Mrs Rallay, of almost fourscore years, buried here this day/' ^ When Mary had read the letter, she declared " it was very comfortable — full of gracious words to her contentment — conformable to Nau's report of her Majesty's natural good disposition towards her." ^ Elizabeth was still amusing her with the farce of carrying on an amicable treaty for her liberation, while every day she riveted her fetters more tightly, " till the iron entered into her soul." The evil influence of the Master of Gray over the mind of her son produced that political estrangement which Mary, both as Queen and mother, felt as the severest blow she had yet experienced. The first suspicion of the painful fact was the information conveyed to her by Nau, " that Gray, having intimated that the young King his master found insuperable difficulties in the treaty of association with the Queen his mother, as joint sovereigns, was dis- posed to serve his own interest by entering into a treaty with the Queen of England in his sole and separate name." The fragment which remains of the intercepted letter the royal mother addressed to her son on the subject, is very interesting. " Never having heard, she says, " till now, that any objection had been made on your part, the lan- 1 Sadler to Walsingham, February 23, 1584-85. ^ j^^j^j^^ p_ 5ig_ ^ State Paper 0£&ce MS., January 5, Wingfield. MAEY STrART. 363 guage held by Gray seems marvellously strange to me. . . not doubting that you, whom I love so dearly, nor he, who has given me so many promises of his services, would have ever wished to do anything to my disadvantage in any treaty here. I would rather impute blame to him, or to any one than to you. If it be the Earl of Arran,^ remind him that I have his letters, with those of several other nobles, approving and confirming our association." Sadler, in repeating Mary's conversation on this pain- ful subject, observes, " that she had a hard opinion touch- ing the conveyance of letters to her son, because she neither received answers from him, nor could learn who were the bearers of hers which she had sent to him through Eliza- beth." She lamented much that " Nau was not permit- ted to confront Gray before the Council, as he would have driven him to speak very differently of the King's mind on the treaty of the association than he had done to her Ma- jesty." Sadler, finding how heavily she took the matter, tried to soothe her by advising her " to comfort herself with her Majesty's favour, whereof he doubted not she should in time see some good effect unless she gave occasion to the contrary."' Cold comfort this, for occasions were invariably found for dashing the cup of hope from the lips of the languishing captive. Sadler, however, was himself deluded by the flattering professions of Elizabeth's friendly inten- tions towards Mary, and the extraordinary favour with which she had promised to treat her, as the reward of her compliance in going to Tutbury without resistance, into the notion that he could not do amiss in allowing her a little more air and some recreative exercise. Accordingly, when Mary's health improved with the approach of spring, sufficiently for her to sit on horseback, he took her out with him on several short excursions, to see him practise his hawks along the banks of the beautiful river Dove and its tributary streams, in the immediate vicinity of the castle. This trifling indulgence, being grudged to the poor captive by some inimical spy in 1 James's unprincipled prime-minister, Stuart of Ochiltree, who had usurped that title from the exiled house of Hamilton. 364 MARY STUART. the castle or its neighbourhood, was reported to Elizabeth, with the exaggeration " that the Scottish Queen was now allowed to go hawking six or seven miles from the castle unguarded." A stern notice of the royal displeasure was communicated to Sir Ralph Sadler by Walsingham. The sturdy old knight indignantly offered this explanation in reply : " The truth is, that when I came hither, finding this country commodious and meet for the sport which I have always delighted in, I sent home for my hawks and falconers wherewith to pass this miserable life I lead here, and when they came hither I took the commodity of them sometimes abroad, not far from this castle, whereof this Queen, having earnestly intreated me that she might go abroad with me to see my hawks fly, a pastime indeed which she taketh singular delight in, and I thinking that it could not be ill taken, assented to her desire, and so hath she been abroad with me three or four times, hawking upon the rivers here, sometimes a mile, sometimes two miles, but not past three miles when she was furthest from the castle/' 1 Somers wrote at the same time to confirm Sadler's state- ment, "that when their royal charge went to see the hawking she was always attended by a strong guard, well mounted and well armed, being herself only accompanied by two gentlewomen and four men of her personal train on these occasions." He adds this chivalric affirmation : " Her Majesty may be assured that if any danger had been offered, or doubt suspected, this Queen's body should first have tasted of the gall."^ Thus every time the poor invalid was permitted, by the indulgence of Sadler, to enjoy the con- traband recreation of riding two or three miles from the castle to see his hawks fly, it was at the imminent peril of her life ; for if a party of gentlemen had galloped towards the same direction to witness the sport, she would probably have been butchered on the suspicion that they were coming to her rescue. Sir Ealph Sadler, however, who was ineffably disgusted with the office that had been thrust upon him, makes the > Sadler's State Papers, ii. 538. ^ state-Paper Office MS. MARY STUART. 365 following pointed observation to Walsingham on the dupli- city with which Mary had been treated, Elizabeth's flat- tering professions having deluded not only the unfortunate captive, but himself : — " I have used my simple discretion in granting this Queen this liberty, the rather for that she thinketh herself by means of such comfortable words as, of late, she received from her Majesty by Nau, to stand now in better terms, and to be in better grace with her Majesty than she hath been heretofore, wherein I thought I did well ; but since it is not so well taken, I would to God some other had the charge, that would use it with more discretion than I can, for I assure you I am so weary of it, that were it not more for that I would do nothing to offend her Majesty, than for fear of any punishment, I would come home and yield myself to be a prisoner in the Tower all the days of my life, rather than I would attend any longer here in this charge." ^ Sir Ealph Sadler's first acquaintance with Mary Stuart had commenced forty-two years previously, in her nursery in Linlithgow Palace, when the Queen, her mother, to con- vince him of the falsehood of the reports depreciating the infant Sovereign as a feeble sickly child, had unwrapped her from her royal purple and miniver, and displayed her in her unveiled loveUness.^ He had then contradicted the invidious statement by testifying how goodly a babe she was, but had not scrupled to injure her by the manner in which he had endeavoured to carry out the unprincipled designs of Henry VIII. against her person and her realm. Pive-and-twenty years later, on her arrival as a desolate fugitive in England, he had advocated in council the bar- barous policy of putting her to death, for the glory of God and the good of his Sovereign.^ He had, in consequence, been chosen as a suitable person to act as one of the commissioners at the conference at York — the managing commissioner, though of inferior rank to Norfolk and Sussex; for by him the reports were drawn up, and a digest made, for the obvious purpose of being shown in evi- dence against Mary, of the supposititious letters, surrepti- tiously exhibited by Moray and his coadjutors, to prejudice ' Sadler's State Papers. 2 See Vol. II. p. 80— Life of Mary of Lorraine. ^ See speech delivered by Sir Ralph Sadler in Council— Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. 366 MARY STUAET. the umpires of the cause against her in 1568. Seventeen years later he had been appointed her keeper, probably under the idea that he might see the expediency of ridding the Queen of so troublesome and chargeable a prisoner ; but standing, as he now was, on the threshold of eternity, and " anxious," as he declares himself, " to seek the ever- lasting quietness of the life to come," he beheld things in a light more worthy of a Christian ; and after six months domestication with her whom he had once fancied, in the bitterness of polemic and political antagonism, he was doing God and his country a service in persecuting even unto death, he learned to speak of her with respect and tenderness, and, as far as he dared, insinuated the propriety of her being treated with kindness and good faith by his Sovereign. The treaty for Mary's liberation, though ostensibly car- ried on for a few weeks longer, was finally broken off, in consequence of Popish plots, now of more frequent occurrence than ever. The Protestant Association for the protection of Elizabeth's life, by prosecuting unto death any accomplice in a conspiracy against it, and to proceed against and render any person, in whose behalf such conspiracy was formed, incapable of the succession, was now made law by Act of Parliament ; and Mary, though she had volun- tarily added her name to the list of those who originally entered into this pact, perceived, in the wording of the sta- tute, that it was significantly pointed against herself, and intended to serve as the instrument for her destruction. When William Parry, whose practice had been to in- sinuate himself into the plots of Mary's seditious partisans, and then to inform against them, was caught in his own snares, being himself denounced by Edmund Neville,^ whom he was endeavouring to inveigle into a plot for the assassi- nation of Queen EHzabeth, as a suborner, for that purpose, 1 Howell's State Trials. As Edmund Neville was a relation of the banished Earl of Westmoreland, and claimed to be the heir and represen- tative of the last Lord Latimer, whose estates were in the possession of Burleigh's eldest son, it is not improbable that Parry thought to render the Minister an acceptable service by inveigling him into a conspiracy against the Queen, and then informing against him ; but Neville, aware of his character and motives, thought proper to be beforehand with him, by denouncing the denouncer of many a previous victim. MAKY STUART. 367 and suffered the death he so richly deserved, Mary wrote thus courageously to Elizabeth on the subject, the name of her former secretary, Morgan, having been implicated in the confessions dictated to Parry under promise of saving his life : — " In regard to what tlie French Ambassador has lately imparted to me, touching Parry and Morgan, I can only assure you, on my honour and conscience, that I have nothing to do with it, nor will you ever find me mixed up in such matters, abhorring more than any one in Christendom such detestable practices and atrocious acts ; for to speak frankly, madam, I believe that those who would attempt your life, would do the same by mine, which now seems to depend on yours, knowing well that, if aught befall you, you have those about you, belonging to this new association, who would soon make me follow you ; but I would rather go before than follow you on such a charge."^ To Mauvissiere she writes : — " I could not take a better method of clearing myself, in case my ene- mies would implicate my name in this matter, than to beseech them, as I do most earnestly, to make the strictest investigation of the whole affair, and not to spare to do their worst if they find I have had any concern with it, on condition, also, that they will refrain from molesting me when satis- fied that I have given them no cause. Would to God that in all places such corrupt and detestable ministers, as I understand Parry was, might be cut off. I cannot be persuaded that Morgan has ever participated with him in such villanies, at least I can assure you that I have never had cog- nisance of it." ^ All the troubles and afflictions that had befallen Mary from her arrival in England, were trivial in comparison with the pangs that rent her heart when she learned that her son had abandoned her interests, accepted a pension from Elizabeth, and entered into an alliance on his sole and separate behalf with that sovereign. All this was the work of his profligate ambassador. Gray, who had now returned to Scotland, and was succeeded in his embassy by Sir Lewis Bellenden, the new Justice-Clerk. An autograph letter from her son, brought by Bellenden, was handed to Mary by Somers, announcing " that he was under the necessity, as she was held captive in a remote place, of declining to associate her with himself in the sovereignty of Scotland, or to treat her otherwise than as Queen-mother." At first she refused to believe that it was the voluntary Labanoff, vol. vi. * Ibid., p. 146. 368 MARY STUART. act of her son, and wrote to Mauvissiere : " I have just received from Somers a letter, said to be from my son, but so far in language and substance from his former promises, and the duty and obligation he owes me, that I cannot accept it for his own, but rather that of Gray, who, full of impiety and dissinmlation both to God and man, thinks this letter a masterpiece to effect the entire separation of my son from me. Therefore, I implore you to request the Queen of England that I may speak to the Justice-Clerk [lately sent to her], in order to ascertain from him the real truth as to my son's intentions."^ Mary's first impression was correct; her son was bought and sold by his subtle representative, Gray, and his unprincipled prime-minister, Stuart, the usurping Earl of Arran, who had possessed him- self of all the power and revenues of the realm, including the large seignorial property of the princely house of Ham- ilton, leaving the nominal Sovereign just liberty enough to pursue the sylvan sports which, at the age of eighteen, had become not only the amusement, but the business of his life, so far had he deteriorated from the bright commence- ment of his career. Twelve days of daily communication on this painful subject with her English keepers, who were instructed to represent her son as devoted now to their Sovereign, persuaded the royal mother that he had heart- lessly abandoned her to life-long captivity, and meanly ren- dered himself the tool of her enemies. In her next letter to Mauvissiere, she enjoins that minister " never, either in speaking or writing, to apply the title of King to her son, since he had ungratefully refused to receive it from her whose concession could alone give him a legal right to bear it." Then, with a burst of passionate haughtiness, she observes — " Without him I am, and shall be of right, as long as I live, his Queen and Sovereign ; but he, independently of me, can only be Lord Darnley or Earl of Lennox, that being all he can pretend to through his father, whom I elevated from my subject to be my consort, never receiving any- thing from him. If he [James VI.] had been the son of King Francis my lord, he might, peradventure, have had some colour for exalting himself; 1 Mary to Mauvissiere, March 12, 1585. MAEY STUAET. 369 but without me, he is too insignificant to think of soaring. I ask nothing from him that belongs to him, but rather wish to give him what is mine, having offered to assure him by legal means of the place which he should hold. I desire not to govern in Scotland, nor even to set foot there again, unless it were to visit him on my way to some other country. I neither want from him aid, pension, support, or entertainment of any kind what- soever, not having received a single penny from Scotland since I left it." ' In her postscript she proudly adds : " I beseech you not to let any one convert me from a genuine sovereign Queen into a Queen-mother, for I do not acknowledge one ; failing our association, there is no King of Scotland, nor any Queen but me." In the agonising excitement of her spirit, she wrote even to Elizabeth on this distressing subject an eloquent and im- passioned letter, in the strain of some injured mother of Greek tragedy, calling on heaven and earth to bear witness of her wrongs, and appealing to her bitterest foe for sym- pathy, threatening to bestow her malediction, and invoke that of heaven on her ungrateful son, and to deprive him of all the grandeur and power he might otherwise inherit from her. No one can believe that she was of sound mind when writing this. The expression of her feelings, by act- ing as a safety-valve, preserved her overburdened heart from breaking ; but to express them to Elizabeth was an inconsistency which can only be accounted for by the sup- position that she was labouring under temporary inflamma- tion of the brain, produced by this last and bitterest of her woes. " Unkindness from him to whom," she says, " I have borne such an intensity of love \" and in whom all the hopes of her desolate spirit had been centred.^ The events that varied the dreary monotony of Mary's prison-life were not of a nature to cheer or divert her mind from nourishing grief. Every day she saw a young Koman Catholic recusant, who was confined in a turret not more than ten paces from her chamber, dragged violently across the courtyard, in spite of his remonstrances and struggles, to the chapel to hear the prayers which he obstinately re- fused to attend on the ground of scruples of conscience. ^ Labanoff, vol. vi. pp. 143, 144. VOL. VII. * Ibid. vol. vL 2 A 370 MARY STUART. At the end of three weeks he put a period to his existence by strangling himself in his cell, — at any rate, he was found in that state by his jailers, and they, with unprecedented brutality, thought proper to outrage the feelings of the captive Queen and her ladies, by suspending his lifeless body from the turret opposite her chamber window. " "What must have been our feelings, think you, on seeing so near us such a spectacle?" writes she to Mauvissiere, in her elo- quent letter relating this frightful occurrence, and request- ing him "to offer a remonstrance against the disrespect with which she had been treated by having the house where she was confined used as a common jail, and a person of her own religion persecuted unto death in her very sight." ^ The circumstances that led to the tragedy described by Mary were as follows : An illiterate and dishonest menial of the name of Humphrey Briggs, having been discharged by his master, Nicholas Langford, Esq. of Langford, a Ro- man Catholic recusant, caused a threatening letter to be written to that gentleman, accusing him " of receiving letters from the Scottish Queen, and transmitting them, with the assistance of his confidential servant, Rowland Kitchyn, to Scotland, of having mass said in his house, of entertain- ing and harbouring massing priests; also that the Queen of Scots had promised to make him a duke." The evident drift of this letter being to extort money, Mr Langford in- trepidly showed it to a neighbouring magistrate, who had taken Briggs into custody on a charge of felony, and the matter was duly communicated to Sir Ralph Sadler and Somers. After a long and serious investigation of the case, nothing could be proved against Mr Langford ; yet the charge of conveying letters for the royal captive appeared so probable, that Rowland, who was said to be in all his secrets, was arrested and imprisoned in Tutbury Castle, where he was dealt with, according to the odious practice of the times, in order to extort evidence against his master. All that he was himself accused of was serving the mass, which he did 1 Lubanoff, vol. vi. pp. 160, 161. MARY STUAET. 371 not deny, and that on one occasion Lie was passing through the hall with a very small letter in his hand, and on being asked by Briggs from whom it came, he replied smilingly, " From the best in England," meaning, as was supposed, the Scottish Queen ; which interpretation, however, he stout- ly denied. After nearly a month's incarceration, and many examinations, fearing that at last something Aight be drawn from him to the injury of his master, he took the desperate resolution of circumventing his inquisitors by self-destruction, just as Sir Ealph Sadler and Somers, con- vinced of the worthlessness of his accuser, who had ab- sconded, were about to release him. Such, at least, is Sadler's explanation of this horrible and somewhat myste- rious fact.^ Mary, not understanding the circumstances perfectly, construed the fate of poor Rowland into a mar- tyrdom, and regarding it as a prelude to her own, in the first excitement of feeling on beholding the appalling spec- tacle, addressed a letter to Elizabeth on this subject, en- treating her not to drive any one to desperate courses by persecutions for conscience sake. " My Secretary has told me that he heard from your own lips 'that it had never been your wish that any of your subjects should suffer for the sake of conscience and religion ; and inasmuch as this was observed in the first years of your reign, you had enjoyed much tranquillity, no one being charged with criminal designs against you.' For God's sake, madam, ad- here to this holy resolution, worthy of you and of all persons of your voca- tion — the examples in our age throughout Christendom having afforded sufficient proof how little human force can effect in matters of religion, which ought to be inspired from on high. For my part, if ever it come to that pass that an open attack be made on me for my religion, I am perfectly ready, with the grace of God, to bow my neck beneath the axe, that my blood may be shed before all Christendom ; and I should esteem it the greatest happiness to be the first to do so. I do not say this out of vain- glory, while the danger is remote." ^ Both in her letters to Elizabeth and to Mauvissiere, Mary generously expresses her conviction " that Sir Ralph Sadler was too good a man to connive at any wicked de- sign either against herself or others." ^ Yet the intensity of his prejudices against persons of her faith led him, as in ^ Original State-Paper MS., Sadler to Walsingham, April 12, 1585 — Sadler's State Papers, vol. ii. 2 Labanoff, vol. vi. pp. 157, 158. " Ibid. 372 MARY STUART. regard to poor Eowland, to abusQ the power with which he was invested, and to exercise his functions as a jailer in the rigorous manner he thus describes to Walsingham : " I send you herewith a letter from Mr Pierrepont to his daugh- ter, a young maiden, that waiteth here on this Scottish Queen, which letter being brought hither by one of his men, accompanied with three or four of his fellows, was deli- vered to the gentleman porter here, who brought it unto me, and I upon the sight thereof opened and read it, and, finding the matter such as it is, have thought good to send it unto you, to the end you may see how the foolish man seemeth devoted unto this Queen and her family. I talked with his servant that brought the letter, and willed him to tell his master, that if he ' were as wise as God might have made him, he would not have written such a letter, nor have sent for his daughter in that sort, but rather, knowing me to be in this place, would have written to me in that behalf.' I also bade him tell his master that it was a shame for her to be nourished and brought up here in Popery as she is, and that if he had sent for her, to keep her still at home, I could have been content to let her come unto him ; but sending for her to return hither again in two or three days, he showed himself to be but a fole in so doing, so should I show myself but a fole to let her go in that sort ; and so I sent him and his fellows away without her, without making her or her mistress acquainted with the matter,"^ The young lady whom Sir Ealph Sadler had taken the liberty of detaining from her parents, after breaking open and reading her father's letter to her, and sending it to the Secretary of State, without making her acquainted with its contents, was Queen Mary's English godchild and adopted daughter, Bess Pierrepont, her companion at bed and board, and at this time, as we see, of her prison, of which she was now doomed to share the restraints, in like manner as the faithful Scotch and French ladies who had followed their royal mistress into exile had for years been compelled. Of her father, Sir Henry Pierrepont, Sadler thus proceeds to ^ State-Paper Office MS. unpublished, April 12, 1585. MARY STUART. 373 speak : " This Pierrepont I know to be a fond man and a peevish Papist ; his wife is one of the Countess of Shrews- bury's daughters.'^ I don't take the man to be a better subject than I am persuaded all Papists are, which hope for a day to see an alteration in the government, and a Papist to enjoy the seat-royal of our dear Sovereign/' ^ As Sir Henry Pierrepont's letter was considered by Mary's keeper a document of sufficient importance to be sent up to the Secretary of State, the readers of these royal biogra- phies may possibly feel some curiosity to penetrate its mys- teries, which are now for the first time unfolded to the world. " With God's hearty blessings from your mother and me, we both being desirous to see you before we go up, the rather, for that upon some respects (which at your coming hither we will acquaint you withal) we do break up house, and know not when we shall come so near you again, do most humbly beseech the Queen's Majesty, your mistress, to give you leave to come over for two or three days ; and in hope of that favour, I have sent my servants to wait on you. You need not bring much shift of clothes with you, because of your short abode here, and therefore I have sent no trunk, but only a mail for your night stuff. I pray you present my humble duty to the Queen's Majesty your mistress (wherein your mother desireth, for her part, to be remembered). And so, with my humble commenda- tions to Mr Nau my son, Curie, and the rest of my good friends in your company, commit you to God his good protection. "At Woodhouse, the 7th of April 1585. " Your very loving father, " H. PlERBBPONT. " Your mother desireth you to do her very hearty commendations unto Mr Nau and your good man." ' The date of this letter shows it was written the same day the tragedy of poor Rowland occurred. Of course Sir Henry Pierrepont was in ignorance of his dreadful fate when he sent it to Tutbury Castle ; but it was probably to terrify his servants, and to serve, by their report, as a warning to him and other adherents of the Romish Church in that neighbourhood, disposed to befriend Mary, that the body of that unfortunate young man was suspended outside the turret where he had been confined, opposite her cham- ber windows. If Bess Pierrepont had been accustomed to ^ Frances Cavendish, the eldest daughter of the Countess of Shrewsbury by Sir William Cavendish. 2 State-Paper Office MS. unpublished. ^ Ibid. 374 MARY STUAET. fetch and carry letters, it must have put her into an especial fright. Among the other secrets of Mary's prison, elucidated by the study of the State-paper correspondence, we find that a romantic attachment had sprung up between Bess Pierre- pont, young as she was, and the French secretary, Jacques Nau, to whom, as may be observed, friendly and familiar messages are sent by her parents, in the above letter from Sir Henry Pierrepont to his daughter. The Countess of Shrewsbury, her grandmother, had set her mind on Bess marrying Lord Percy, the eldest son of the Earl of Nor- thumberland; and at her earnest solicitation Mary had written to propound the same to the young nobleman. As she was regarded by the members of that illustrious family as their rightful Sovereign, due attention was paid to her recommendation, but the arrest of the Earl of Northum- berland, and the troubles that followed, delayed the accom- plishment of the proposed matrimony. In the mean time Bess Pierrepont suffered herself to be captivated by the homage of the gay French secretary, who had fallen in love with her, and enjoyed the unlimited opportunity, se- cluded as she was from the sight of other men, of offer- ing his insinuating flattery and attention, and succeeded in implanting a reciprocal passion in her young inexperienced heart. This was a fact unsuspected by their royal mistress, who, regarding Bess Pierrepont as the future bride of Lord Percy, never dreamed of her encouraging the suit of a man old enough to be her father, and in whose daily society she had grown up from her fourth year, or that he would have regarded her fair young favourite in any other light than that of the pretty child with whom he had been domesticated for nearly twelve years, and, no doubt, had assisted in educating. But after her occasional visits to her parents, never before forbidden, the damsel's progress from child- hood to the early bloom of womanly grace and beauty^ made itself apparent to the Secretary, though the captive ^ Bess Pierrepont was of a family remarkable for personal beauty — witness Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who claimed her paternal descent from the same connection. MAEY STUAET. 375 Queen, absorbed in her own griefs and perplexities, observed not the silent courtship that was carried on behind her chair and beside her escrutoire, between these privileged inmates of her privy chamber. Sir Henry and Lady Pierrepont were sufficiently aware of Nau's attentions to their daughter, to speak of him as " her good man/' and " their son." The letter in which Nau was thus designated by Sir Henry, inconsequential as it appears, supplied Wal- singham with a key to feelings which were probably tam- pered with when the enamoured Secretary was subsequently committed to his custody. Mary Stuart's melancholy prison-life became involved in deeper shades of gloom when Sir Ralph Sadler, having at last obtained his discharge from the ungracious office he had so impatiently filled, was succeeded by Sir Amyas Paulet, a rigid Puritan — a stanch adherent of Leicester, and a man of harsh, uncourteous manners. This new keeper arrived at Tutbury Castle on the 17th of April 1585/ Mary, who had dreaded his advent, fancying her life would not he safe in his hands, took an antipathy to him at first sight, and in- stead of giving him the like pleasant reception she had ac- corded to Sir Ralph Sadler, expressed herself surprised and oflFended at being committed to the custody of any one under the rank of a baron. The fact was, no peer of the realm, in whose principles Elizabeth could confide, between Trent and Tweed, would undertake that office, the allow- ance for the maintenance and safe-keeping of the captive Queen being now cut down to fifteen hundred a-year, which was one cause of Sadler's dissatisfaction and persevering determination to relinquish so thankless and unprofitable a task. After remaining at Tutbury Castle till the begin- ning of May, to put their successor into the accustomed routine of rules and regulations, Sadler and Somers bade their royal charge farewell. She made Somers the bearer of her letters, and a memorial of various requests to Queen Elizabeth, together with her complaints of the damp, dilapi- dated, and comfortless state of the apartments wherein she and her ladies were confined ; the truth of which no one was Labanoff. 376 MARY STUART, better qualified to testify than himself ; and she earnestly implored to be removed into some less inconvenient and noxious abode ; also, that she might be permitted to have some new servants to supply the loss of those who had died or been disabled in her service. Neither her requests, com- plaints, or remonstrances, obtained the slightest attention. There was, indeed, only too much truth in what Lady Shrewsbury had formerly told her in confidence, " that the certain way of having anything she desired denied, was to express a particular wish for it to be granted, and then she was sure never to have it, but something the direct con- trary" imposed.^ Sir Amyas Paulet entered upon his new authority in the most rigorous spirit of jailership : he established restrictions on the captive Queen, and the voluntary participators in her incarceration, more intolerable than anything they had yet experienced. Cut off, as the once gay and magnificent Mary Stuart was, from all the pleasures and amusements of the world, one consolation had hitherto remained to her, that of exercising her charity, by sparing from her stinted means to minister to the necessities of the neighbouring poor. Of this blessed privilege her new keeper thought proper to deprive her a few days after his arrival at Tut- bury. Her feelings on this restriction will be best described by her own pen in her letter to Mauvissiere : — " I must complain through you to the Queen my good sister, that, among other innovations here, the Sieur Paulet has not permitted me for several days past to send some little alms, according to my means, to the poor of the neighbouring village, which truly I cannot but impute to a very strange rigour, as it is a pious work, of which no Christian can disapprove ; and in which the Sieur Paulet might take the precaution of sending with my man his servants or soldiers, or even the constable of the village, if he pleased, so as to leave no grounds for suspicion ; and having by that means provided for the safety of his charge, it appears to me wrong for him to debar me from a Christian work, that might afford me consolation in my sickness and afflictions, without offence or prejudice to any one. Remonstrate about this, if you please, on my behalf to the Queen my good sister, and pray her to order the Sieur Paulet not to treat me thus, for there never was a pri- soner or criminal, however poor and abject, to whom this permission has been by any law denied." * 1 Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 224. 2 Ibid., vi. m. MAEY STUART. 377 A report being spread at this time that Mary had made an attempt to effect her escape, Sir Amyas Paulet, in reply to a letter Burleigh had addressed to him, expressing some uneasiness on the subject, wrote to certify that there was no cause to fear the Queen of Scots would ever come alive out of his hands. " If I should be violently attacked,'' he sternly observes, " I will be so assured by the grace of God that she shall die before me." ^ While the life of this hapless Princess was held thus cheaply by her foes, and its brief remnant was daily em- bittered by the petty tyrannies to which she was subjected, she had also to mourn the sufferings and calamities of her most devoted friends in England. Philip, Earl of Arundel, who had been released for a short time from the Tower, was again arrested on an attempt to seek refuge from his enemies by quitting England, and committed to close confinement. Dr Atslow, the skilful physician who had more than once relieved her in attacks of illness which others had pronounced hopeless, had also been apprehended on suspicion of being implicated with his patron Arundel in a conspiracy in her favour, and twice racked almost unto death for the purpose of extorting evidence from his confessions,^ A few days after the arrest of Arundel, another of her friends, the Earl of Northumberland, who had been long a prisoner in the Tower, perceiving his death determined on, put a period to his existence, in order to preserve his large estates from being forfeited to the Crown. In the midst of these painful events, Mary was again attacked with a severe illness : on her recovery she sent for Sir Amyas Paulet, and expressed herself deeply hurt that the Queen his mistress, though duly informed of her suffer- ings and danger, had not once sent to inquire for her, or written a word of comfort ; indeed, for the last four months, she had not vouchsafed a reply to any of her letters.^ Sympathy must have been very dear to this unfortunate Princess, if she desired that of Elizabeth. But she occa- 1 State-Paper Office MS., June 12, 1585. ^ Intercepted letter of Thomas Morgan to Queen Mary, printed in Mur- din's State Papers. " Correspondence of Sir Amyas Paulet— State-Paper Office MS. 378 MARY STUART. sionally deluded herself with the forlorn hope of obtaming from pity that which was denied to justice. She writes on the ] 0th of July to Mauvissi^re, complain- ing of the sufferings she experienced, even at that warm season of the year, from the bleak situation of her prison, and the coldness of her dilapidated bedchamber, in conse- quence of the draughts that pervaded it in all directions through cracks and holes in the walls, and begs him to represent it to Elizabeth. " Tell her," continues the captive Sovereign, " there are a hundred peasants in the wretched village at the foot of this castle who are better lodged than I am!"i After two months of hopeless expectation, no alteration being made, Mary addressed a letter jointly to the same Minister, who was about to return to France, and his suc- cessor, M. de Chateauneuf, with the following graphic description of her location and its discomforts : ^ "In order to convey to you a correct notion of the situation of the place where I am kept, that you may remonstrate in my behalf to this Queen (who has never, I presume, been pro- perly informed on the subject), I must tell you that it is surrounded with high fortified walls, on the summit of a mountain, exposed to the assaults of all the winds of heaven. Within this enclosure is a ruinous building of lath and plaster, similar to the old hunting-lodge in the wood of Yincennes, falling to pieces on every side, the plaster broken away from the woodwork, and cracked in all directions. This edifice is about twenty feet from the walls, and lies so low that the rampart of earth behind the walls is on a level with the highest part of it, so that the sun is entirely excluded on that side, and can never shine upon it, nor can any fresh air visit it ; for which reason it is so damp that you cannot put any furniture in that quarter without its being in four days covered with mould. I leave you to judge how that must affect the human body. The only apartments I have for ray own person (and for the truth of this I appeal to all who have been here) are two miserable little rooms, so excessively cold, especially at night, 1 Labanoff, vol. vi. pp. 181, 182. 2 Ibid., vi. 215. MARY STUART. 379 that but for the ramparts and intrenchments of curtains and tapestry I have had made, I should not be able to exist. Scarcely one of the ladies who have sat up with me at night during my illnesses, has escaped without inflamma- tion, catarrh, or some other malady. Sir Amyas can bear witness that he has seen three of my damsels ill at once from this cause alone. My physician, who has had his share, declares positively that he will not take the charge of my health next winter, if I am to remain in this house. As for replastering, repairing, or enlarging it, you may conceive how wholesome it would be for me to live in such new pieces of patchwork, when I cannot endure the least breath of damp air ; for which reason it will be useless to offer to make alterations or repairs against the winter. In regard to my conveniences," she sarcastically observes, " I have neither gallery nor cabinet to retire to, for occa- sional privacy, except two paltry holes, the largest of them being scarcely eight feet square, and having no other pros- pect than the dead wall opposite, which obscures the light. There being no vacant place on the castle-hill for me to take exercise in the open air, either on foot or in my chair, I have only about a quarter of an acre near the stables, which Somers had dug up last winter, and enclosed with a rough wood fence : a place, to look at, fitter to keep pigs in than to be called a garden. There is not a sheepfold in the open fields but has a more elegant appearance.'' The royal prisoner concludes her bitter list of domestic grievances by mentioning the horrible malaria occasioned by want of proper drains, and the intolerable nuisance to which she was subjected by the practice of emptying that under her chamber window every Saturday. " I will say," continues she, " that as this house has been my first prison and place of confinement in this realm, where from the first I have been treated with much harshness, rudeness, and indignity, so have I ever held it to be unlucky and omin- ous." ^ After alluding to the frightful incident of the poor man who had been tormented to death, being hanged from the wall opposite her windows, and of another who had been ^ Labanoff, vol. vL p. 219. 380 MARY STUART. drowned in the well, she mournfully adds: " Then, too, I have lost my good Rallay here, who was one of the chief consolations of my captivity. Another of my servants is since dead, and others have been sorely tried with sickness." The Countess of Atholl had lately repeated her offer of coming with her youthful daughter to wait upon her royal mistress in this dolorous prison ; and Mary, who had vainly solicited that a passport might be granted for them, now urges the two noble French envoys to exert their influence with Elizabeth for that purpose, " not having near me,'' she says, " in this solitude, any companions suitable to my rank and age. [Mary] Seton and my good Eallay formerly supplied the want of better ; and I cannot conceive any reason for denying me the Countess of Atholl in their place, unless from the fear that they might give me some consolation by bringing me tidings of my son."^ It did not, of course, suit the policy of the English cabinet to allow any one to be introduced into Mary's household, who might possibly act as a medium of communication between her and her son, for the explanation and recon- ciliation of the unhappy misunderstanding which had been created between them by his corrupt and perfidious min- isters. The Countess of Atholl and her daughter were not, however, the only countrywomen of Mary Stuart who were, at this dark epoch of her fortunes, inspired with the generous ambition of devoting themselves to her personal service in the land of exile and the house of bondage. Barbara and Gillies Mowbray, the two youngest daughters of the Laird of Barnbougal,^ a leading member of the pres- byterian Congregation and a man of large territorial pos- sessions, sought and succeeded in obtaining the melancholy privilege of being added to the prison household of their captive Queen — a favour they might probably have solicited in vain if they had not been Protestants, and their father, Sir John Mowbray, a stanch adherent of the rebel faction. His opposition to Mary's government was doubtless on • Labanoff, vi. 223. * Barnbougal was the ancient name of Dalmeny, the beautiful domain of the Earl of Rosebery. MARY STUART. 381 religious and political grounds ; for if he had not been con- vinced that the gross charges with which she had been stigmatised were false, he would have prevented his young daughters from entering her service and associating their destinies with hers. How great a triumph it was for Mary ! how striking a testimonial of the estimation in which her character was held by the ladies of Scotland, that the daughters of her foe should voluntarily relinquish the com- forts and luxuries of their paternal castle to come and wait upon her in her dreary English prison ! Agnes and Eliza- beth, the elder daughters of Barnbougal, were richly and honourably married, one to Napier, Baron of Merchiston,^ the other to Crichton of Elliok, the king's advocate, father of the Admirable Crichton. The loyal maidens, Barbara and Gillies, preferred the apparently nun-like vocation of maids of honour to their captive Sovereign, to the prospect of forming the most brilliant alliances the Scottish Court could offer. But alliances are sometimes formed in prisons as well as courts, and before they had been a month at Tutbury Castle, the youthful charms of Barbara captivated one of the associates of her seclusion, Gilbert Curie, of whom Sir Ealph Sadler has given the following pithy description : — " Mr Curie is one of this Queen's secretaries, a Scotchman, acquainted with all her affairs since her coming into this realm. He is nothing so quick- witted or so ready as Nau is, but hath a shrewd melancholy wit. She maketh great account of him as very secret and sure to her."^ The regard of Barbara and Gilbert was reciprocal, and being sanctioned by their royal mistress, the gloom of those dismal towers was enlivened by the unwonted event of a bridal, the first at which Mary Stuart had assisted since the ill-omened nuptials of Margaret Cawood and Bastian Paiges. The wooing was a short one, for Mary announces " the arrival of a daughter of the Laird of Barnbougal in London, desiring to come and wait on her," in a letter to Walsingham dated September SOth,^ not being then aware 1 Note to Mark Napier's Edition of Spottiswood. * Sadler Papers, vol. ii. p. 523. ^ Labanoflf's Appendix, vol. vii. 382 MARY STUART. that she was accompanied by a sister, also a candidate for her service ; and, on the 2d of November—" Gilbert Curie and Barbara Mowbray sign a discharge to Nau for 2000 crowns,^ being a present to them from their royal mistress on their marriage."^ Mary's liberality on this occasion excited jealousy and apparently murmurs among her followers, for some one, probably Nau, wrote to her reverend correspondent, P^re La Eue, accusing her of too great partiality in lavishing her bounty on the Scotch secretary, when others who had performed services equally deserving of her favour were left unrewarded. In her reply to La Rue's letter, appris- ing her of these remarks, she mildly observes: " I pray you to reflect how difficult it is for princes, however just and conscientious they may be in their actions, to satisfy every' one about them, many being more intent on their own selfish interests than the weal of their masters. If I have favoured Curie about his marriage, he has well deserved it of me, and I hold myself in conscience bound to reward him, he having been with me during the whole period of my captivity/' ^ Soon after the solemnisation of this hasty prison-bridal, Mary was again confined to her bed with a severe attack of neuralgic pain and fever, which deprived her for several weeks of the use of her right hand and arm. While she was in this suffering state. Sir Amyas Paulet announced to her, " in obedience," as he said, " to his instructions," the startling tidings that the rebel lords who had been dally cherished in England, had re-entered Scotland with a strong military force, surprised Stirling, and compelled the King, ^ State Paper Document, November 2, 1586. 2 Gillies Mowbray also was the recipient, probably on that occasion, of two gifts from Queen Mary, which are carefully preserved as heirloom relics in the family of her descendant, Sir George Clerk of Penicuik. One is a neck- lace of oval gold beads, of the size of bird's eggs, each of which unscrews, for the purpose of being filled with cotton saturated with perfumed essence, the odour of which exudes through the holes with which the beads are delicately perforated in a lace pattern. The other is a small enamelled gold locket, with the miniatures of Mary and Francis II., with several pendant pearls suspended from it by delicate gold-chains. ^ Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 350. MARY STUAET, 383 her son to surrender himself and his principal fortresses into their hands/^ ^ The indignation Mary had conceived at her son's poli- tical abandonment of her, was succeeded by maternal solici- tude and fears for his life. " These tidings," she bitterly observes, " have, in truth, produced the effect for which they were so promptly communicated, that of adding afflic- tion to affliction, anguish of mind to bodily suffering, with- out the slightest compassion for the extremity of sickness to which the hardships of my prison have reduced me.^ But that which grieves me most is to see myself deprived of the means of rendering him the slightest aid in this calamity, being detained, bound hand and foot, with nothing remaining to me but my voice, feeble enough now, to appeal to my God, in groans, against such cruel and inhuman treatment.^ She entreats Chateauneuf, the new French Ambassador, " to remonstrate, with the Queen of England on the encouragement given to those who were playing the like game against her son's royal authority and person that had from first to last been practised against herself, the cause of all the calamities she had suffered ; also to state that the late Earl of Gowrie had, before his execution, con- fessed to the Master of Gray, that it had been arranged in England, only the project was prevented, that she and her son were both to have been put to death on the same day." This letter, is dated on the 8th of December. Melancholy birthday occupation ! The Ambassador was spared the trouble of making the desired representation of the wrongs of the royal mother and son in terms of diplomatic caution, for the letter, being intercepted, was read in the unadulter- ated force of Mary's impassioned eloquence, together with her genuine opinion of the dishonourable policy with which Elizabeth had acted. 1 Mary to Chateauneuf, Tutbury, 20th of December 1585. 2 Ibid.— Labanoff. 3 Labanoff, v. 237-251. MAEY STUART CHAPIEB LX. SUMMARY Mary taken to Chartley Castle — Amends at first— Suffers severe relapse — Her miserable bed — She petitions for a better — Walsingham's machina- ' tions to implicate Mary in a conspiracy against Elizabeth's life— Origin of the Babington plot — Walsingham's spy, Gifford, deludes Mary and her friends — She is visited in her prison by Cherelles — He obtains the keys of her ciphers — She does not learn his treachery till too late — Gives him a diamond-ring and her table-book — His opinion of her — Mary invited to join the Papal League — She refuses — Eeproved by priest La Rene for objecting to persecuting measures — Progress of Bab- ington's plot against Elizabeth, and Walsingham's against Mary — Agency of the Burton ale-brewer in the exchange of letters to and from Chartley Castle — They are all opened, read, and interpolated in Wal- singham's office — Phillipps the decipherer under the same roof with Mary — His unscrupulous character and practices — Mary's misgivings and perplexity at his appearance — Her domestic annoyances — Clandes- tine courtship of Nau and Bess Pierrepont — Mary perceives its danger- ous tendency — Desires to send Bess away — Number and discrepant nature of letters pretended to have been written by Mary in one day — Evidences of Phillipps's interpolations and forgeries — Mary accused as the suborner of Babington' s plot by Sir Thomas Gorge, and hurriecL' away to Tixall against her will — Nau and Curie arrested and taken to London — Mary put in solitary confinement at Tixall — Secretary Wade seizes her papers and jewels — Mary brought back to Chartley — Her appeal to the gentlemen of her escort — Her pathetic answer to her poor . suppliants — Curie's wife in childbed — Mary comforts her — Requests Paulet to let his chaplain baptise the babe— He refuses — Mary baptises it herself — She enters her own chamber, finds her coffers ransacked — Her indignant exclamation to Paulet — She falls ill — Deprived of the use of her right arm — Paulet's ruffianly conduct to her — He seizes her money — Her letter to the Duke de Guise protesting her innocence — Anticipates death — Her secretaries imprisoned in Walsingham's house — Intimidation practised to induce them to betray her — Nau's frantic love for Bess Pierrepont — He gets a memorial protesting Mary's inno- MARY STUART. 385 cence sent privately to Elizabeth — Mary transported to Fotherin- ghay Castle — Her prophetic exclamation on first seeing the towers — Description of her last prison. The last good office Mauvisslfere de Castelnau had per- formed for Mary Stuart, before he quitted England, was to persuade Elizabeth to remove her to some place less inimi- cal to her health than the miserable prison-lodgings she occupied in Tutbury Castle. Elizabeth said she would have Chartley Castle, a feudal mansion belonging to the young Earl of Essex, Leicester's stepson, prepared for her recep- tion.i Mary, to whom the prospect of any change was cheering, wrote to express her grateful acknowledgments for this concession, and implored that her removal might take place immediately. It was, however, delayed till the setting-in of the cold weather stretched her again on a bed of acute suffering, whence she wrote her complaints to Mauvissiere, " that the promise he had obtained in her behalf had not been fulfilled," and begged him " to urge the King and Queen of France, and the Queen her mother-in-law, to make a serious notification to the English Ambassador at Paris, of their surprise and displeasure that she was still kept in so wretched a place." ^ In consequence of their repre- sentations, the long-delayed warrant for her removal was issued. Sir Amyas Paulet, who was suffering from the gout, and felt only for himself, tried to persuade Mary to remain quietly where she was instead of moving during the winter months. " Very little consideration/' she bitterly observed, " had been shown for her when compelled to travel in the depth of winter from Wingfield thither, at a time when she could scarcely turn in her bed, after three months' confinement to her chamber." Paulet reported to Walsingham that " the Scottish Queen was certainly in great pain, having at this time defluxions," meaning in- flamed swellings, " from rheumatic gout in her shoulder, her arm, and her heel." He was himself ill, but consoled himself with the fact that she was worse, being confined ' Labanoff. Jebb. 2 Labanoff. Mauvissiere's Despatches, in Jebb. ' Paulet to Walsingham, November 17, 1585 — State-Paper Office MS. VOL, VII. 2 B 386 MARY STUAET. to her bed, and unable to stir. Little did he understand the courageous spirit which animated that suffering frame, and enabled it to carry out her will. He had no inclination for the journey, " suspecting," as he said, " it would be trou- blesome, from the quantity of baggage the said Queen and her attendants had in apparel, books, and the like trash ! " ^ Into what stern uncivilised hands, alas ! had this accom- plished Princess fallen in her latter days; but they were now rapidly drawing to a close. Her transfer to Chartley was, at last, fixed for Christmas eve. Paulet summoned the principal gentlemen of that district to assist in guard- ing her from any attempts at rescue. The journey was safely performed, notwithstanding her bodily indisposition and the bad condition of the roads, in one day. Change of air and scene effected, for a few days, amendment of health and spirits. Paulet reported Mary as somewhat better in the beginning of January ; but towards the end of the month she suffered a relapse, sleeping little and eating less, and became so ill with pains in her limbs and debility, that she could not turn in her bed without help.^ What solace that bed was calculated to afford to the agonising limbs of the royal sufferer in her feverish unrest, let the following parti- culars, communicated by Sir Amyas Paulet to Walsing- ham, testify — proving withal, that, bad as it was, worse had previously been allotted for her use. " Last year, when she came to Tutbury, she complained ' that her bed was stained and ill-flavoured,' and Mr Somers, to accommodate her, gave her his own bed, which was only a plain ordinary feather-bed ; and now, by her long lying in it, the feathers come through the tick, and its hardness causes her great pain."^ He adds her petition for a down-bed ; " a request which he could not in honesty and charity refuse to men- tion."^ There is not, however, the slightest evidence that it was ever sent. It Vvas certainly from this hard bed of thorns, not roses, that Mary, on the 17th of January, dictated the answer her 1 Paulet to Walsingham, December 6— Chalmers's Life of Mary Queen of Scots. * Sir Amyas Paulet to Walsingham, January 26, 1585-86— State-Paper Office MS. 3 Ibid., Feb. 2. « Ibid. MARY STUART. 387 secretary Curie returned to a letter Morgan had unhappily intrusted to Walsingham's agent, the perfidious Gilbert Gifford, with an assurance " that she might safely confide in and employ the bearer, a priest of their own church, and devoted to her cause, whose uncle lived about ten miles from Chartley." Having been for many months cut off from any means of corresponding with her friends, Mary fell into the snare as blindly as Morgan had done; she enclosed ciphered letters to the Duke de Guise and Archbishop Beton, which afforded clues to many secret matters. In reference to Giflford, she says : — " I thank jon heartily for this bringer, whom I perceive very willing to acquit himself honestly of his promise made unto you ; but for such causes as presently I will not write ; I fear his danger of sudden discovery, my keeper having settled such an exact and rigorous order in all places where any of my people can go, as it is very strange if they receive or deliver anything which he is not able to know very soon after." i Aware, as Mary was, of this fact, what infatuation could persuade her that any one would be able to bring letters to her from her secret friends, and receive her replies, unless that facility was permitted to some artful emissary of her powerful foes, in order to accomplish her destruction, by obtaining evidence that might bring her under the penalties of the recently-enacted statute that had been framed for that purpose ? Morgan was then in the Bastile, where he had been shut up by Henry III. of France, when Elizabeth, after Parry had accused him of conspiring her assassination, had demanded that he should be sent back to England for punishment. Henry kept his person in security, but sent his papers. These supplying evidence that a plot was going on, with which the Pope, the King of Spain, and many of the Roman Catholics in England and Ireland were connected, for the deliverance of the captive Queen of Scots,^ Wal- singham commissioned Pooley, Maude, and Gilbert Giflford, three seminary priests, subtle spies in his pay, to obtain access to Morgan, and, under the pretext of seeking the death of Elizabeth and the re-establishment of the Eomish Church, ' Labanoff, v. 254. 2 Tytler. Camdea— State-Paper Correspondence. 388 MARY STUART. to obtain his confidence. Morgan, a hot-headed "Welshman, listened to their suggestions, and accepted their profFered\ services. Unhappily his credulity induced him to introduce them, with assurances of their fidelity and zeal, to Mary's friends, both in Paris and England. Worse than all, he brought the master-fiend of the trio, Gifford, into immediate communication with herself.-"- He arrived in England in December, bringing that letter from Morgan to the captive Queen, which induced her to trust him with her ciphered letters on the 17th of January. In order to carry on his operations, he had, with the approbation of Walsingham, and the connivance of Sir Amyas Paulet, engaged the brewer in the neighbouring town of Burton, who is significantly designated in their correspondence " the honest man," when he brought the weekly supply of beer< for the family to the Castle, to put within one of the barrels of ale allotted to the Queen of Scots' servants, a small wooden box in which letters addressed to her were enclosed. This, box, when taken out by her butler, was delivered to either' Nau or Curie. The packets of letters, for transmission to her agents and foreign friends, were returned in the same box to Gifford, when the brewer came for the empty barrels, the following week.2 Gifford delivered them to Thomas'^ Throckmorton, a family connection of his own, who under- took to convey them to Walsingham 's office, to prevent spies in the service of Mary's secret friends from detecting his connection with that wily Minister. The seals of Mary's letters were then carefully opened by Arthur Gregory, an official famous for his skill in that honourable department,. ^ Gilbert Gifford was the son of an ancient Roman Catholic family in Staffordshire. His father had long been in prison for recusancy, and he had been educated, from his tenth year, in a Jesuit college abroad. He was well acquainted with all the continental languages. He adopted various aliases, and was known in London, where he was occasionally domiciled with a kindred spirit, Walsingham's decipherer Phillipps under the name of Nicholas Cornelius. In Mary's correspondence with Morgan, where he is often mentioned as the general medium through whose good^ offices, and able management, the correspondence was carried on, he( figures under the romantic name of " Pietro." I 2 Chateauneuf's narrative of the Babington Plot, Labanoff, vol. vi. Camden says " the letters were deposited in a hole in the wall, where a loose stone was removed and replaced over them." MAEY STUART. 389' the contents read, deciphered, and transcribed by Thomas Phillipps, and communicated by him to Walsingham.^ Charmed with the apparent facility now opened for the transmission of the numerous letters which she passed her weary prison-leisure in writing or dictating to her two secre- taries, Mary wrote to the French Ambassador, Chateauneuf, under cover to Gifford, " that he might safely intrust all the letters that had been sent to him for her to this new and devoted agent, through whom he might henceforward freely communicate with her." Chateauneuf hesitated at first to do so, but finally complied with her requisition.^ It is a curious fact that Nau availed himself of the oppor- tunity of transmitting, through Gifford, a private letter on his own love affairs to the Ambassador's secretary, Cordaillot, requesting him to obtain the consent of Sir Henry Pierrepont for his marriage with his daughter, " who has," says Chateau- neuf, " been brought up by the Queen of Scots, and is very much beloved by her; the said father of the damsel being then in London, entered into the treaty with him for the marriage, secretly and against the will of the Queen their mistress/'^ This underhand proceeding, coming accidentally to Mary's knowledge, excited her displeasure and created a coolness between her and her young favourite, insomuch that she requested Sir Henry and Lady Pierrepont to take their daughter into their own care, which was, of course, very displeasing to the enamoured Secretary. Cherelles, the perfidious attachd of Mauvissiere, had been continued in his old office of Secretary of Legation to his successor Chateauneuf, and came to visit Mary at Chart- ley in the beginning of March, under the pretence of bringing her letters from the King and others of the royal family of France ; but his real object was to obtain from her the keys to several of her ciphers which had baffled Phillipps: these he communicated to his suborner Walsingham. Only the next week the Archbishop of Glasgow^ wrote to Mary " to warn her not to trust Cher- 1 State-Paper Correspondence— Paulet to Walsingham. Tytler's History of Scotland. State Trials. * Chateauneufs Narrative of the Babington Conspiracy, in Labanoff, vol vi. ^ Ibid. Labanoff, vi. 261, 390 MARY STUAET. elles in any way, for his most Christian Majesty was in- formed that he had been gained over by Walsingham to the service of the English Queen, who had given him a gold chain worth two hundred crowns." i Poor Mary had pathetically expressed her regrets to this caitiff " that she had not a present worthy of his acceptance to offer him ; " but of the few relics of her former splendour she gave him a diamond ring, together with her own table- book, in which she had written many sentences with her own hand.^ This incident was repeated by Cherelles himself, when upwards of fourscore years of age, to one of Mary's French biographers, to whom he showed the book, which was richly bound in crimson velvet, embroidered by her own hands, clasped with gold, and the corners guarded with plates of gold. " The book was indeed richly bound," he said ; " but she enriched it more with her royal hands, and the gracious manner with which she gave it." He spoke also of " the profit he had derived from some remarkable sentences she had inserted therein," and declared " that no one could see and converse with that illustrious lady in her prison and afEic- tion without edification." There is nothing more remarkable in the personal history of Mary Stuart, than that such record should have been borne of her, more than forty years after her death, by a person who had assisted in weaving the web for her destruction.^ Did no remorse for the base part he had played mingle with his reminiscences of his visit to Ohartley? The passions, the prejudices, the jealousies, the supposed necessities of their cause, may plead somewhat in extenuation of the ungenerous manner in which Mary was treated by her great political rivals and foes •, but she had never oiFended Cherelles, the Master of Gray, Archibald Douglas, or Gilbert Gifford, the subordinate villains who betrayed her for the lucre of gold. That unhallowed confederacy between the Pope, Sixtus Y., Philip II., the Duke of Guise, and other leading men of the Church of Rome, celebrated in the history of the six- 1 This letter was intercepted, and is in the State-Paper Office. * Caussin. ^ Caussin's Life of Mary Stuart, in Jebb. MARY STUART. 391 teenth century by the name of the Holy League^ had been organised in the summer of 1585 for the purpose of exclud- ing the Protestant heir of France, Henry of Navarre, from the royal succession of that realm, placing a Koman Catholic sovereign on the English throne, restoring the papal authority throughout the Britannic Isles, and suppress- ing Protestantism in the west of Europe. When Mary was advised to join the league she prudently declined doing so, observing, " that she could see no advantage derivable from it that could counterbalance the injury it would do her in England if it were suspected she were a party to it."^ The principles on which the leaders of this confederacy had determined to act, were very different from the enlightened views of her who had declared herself, both on the throne of Scotland and in her English prison, opposed to constraint being put on the conscience of any one in regard to religion. Of the inimical effect her tolerant sentiments were likely to produce on the head of her church, she was thus warned by Pere La E-ue :^ " Believe me. Madam, they have done you a very bad service who have spread the report at Eome, and, above all, with the Pope, that your Majesty will not consent to the use of force. The Pope is a very strong-minded nian, and very severe against heretics, and will employ every means in his power for their extermination." Better was it for Mary Stuart to die a victim, than to live and reign as the reluctant tool of bigotry and despotism, so uncongenial to her liberal mind and gener- ous temper. The unscrupulous proceedings of the anti- protestant league on the Continent were naturally retaliated in England by increased severities on the Eoman Catholic recusants, which, by driving them to desperation, provoked numerous conspiracies against Elizabeth's government and person. In all these Mary's name was the inspiration, her wrongs the watchword, of the disaffected members of the Eomish Church. This was urged to Elizabeth, by her Ministers, as a cogent reason for the destruction of 1 LabanofF, vol. vii. p. 298. 2 August 28, 1585— Teulet's Collections. Pere La Rue was a Scotch ecclesiastic formerly attached to her service in Scotland ; his real name was Henry. 392 MAEY STUAET. a rival whose existence was declared to be incompatible with her personal safety, the peace of the realm, and the security of the reformed church. The massacre of St Bartholomew, the assassination of the Prince of Orange, and the persecuting bigotry of Philip II., of which Eng- land had had a fiery specimen during his joint reign with his matrimonial victim, Mary I., were all brought in array against the popish heiress of the Crown, as if she had been the inciter of all the crimes that had brought reproach on the church to which she belonged, till even good and conscientious men regarded the prospect of her succession with feelings of alarm. Those who had anything to lose, by the contingencies of an ecclesiastical revolution, were ready to coincide in any measure for her destruction that might be devised under colour of justice. A book was published to prove the lawfulness of putting her to death 5 and it had been openly propounded in Parliament, that, as she was the cause of all the dangerous conspiracies of the Pope and others against the Queen and her realm, it was expedient that she should be taken off.^ As yet, however, nothing had been found in evidence against her, that could, in Elizabeth's opinion, justify to the world so strong a measure as shedding her blood. They had indeed obtained, through Gifford's treacherous arts, many of her most secret confiden- tial letters to her especial confederates ; but, though expres- sive of her desire that the King of Spain would endeavour to effect her deliverance by means of an invading army, there was not a word, up to the end of May, that could be construed into practising against Elizabeth's life. On the last of that month, Mary, in reply to a propo- sition for her escape from Hall the Jesuit, whose letter of the 10th of March 1585 had only just come to hand, wrote, "that if she had received it while at Wingfield, and the funds necessary for putting the design into execution had been sent, she thought it might then have been brought to pass, that house being very fit for the purpose, surrounded with wood, and in the winter, which was favourable for such enterprises ; besides, her keepers at that time, Sadler and ^ Strype, vol. ii. p. 299. MAEY STUART. 393 Somers, gave her much more liberty than she was to have been allowed, in order to reconcile her to their substitution for the Earl of Shrewsbury. " But now," she says, " both myself and folks are so straitly looked unto, and kept so close, as that neither [I] nor any of them have power to practise any one within this house to ray devotion, except him that leadetli this intercourse" — meaning the perfidious GiflPord ; " and without I were assisted by some of my keeper's servants, it is now impossible for me to escape. The gate so nelyd [fastened], never one window of my lodging, nor way about the house, being day or night with- out a centinel." ^ About this time a fierce Koman Catholic, named John Savage, who had borne arms under the banner of Spain in the Low Countries, being persuaded by fanatic priests of the Jesuit seminary at E,heims,that it would be a meritorious act to assassinate Queen Ehzabeth, took a solemn vow to per- petrate the deed himself At Paris he encountered a kindred spirit in John Ballard, a half-crazy priest belonging to the same society, and frequently employed by Morgan in sedi- tious missions in England. Ballard approved the design, offered to assist in it, and introduced him to Charles Paget and Morgan, both of whom assented to it. One of Wal- singham's spies, of the name of Maude, by pretending great zeal for the Church of Kome and vehement hatred against Elizabeth, got into Ballard's confidence, was accept- ed as a member of the plot, and communicated all their proceedings to his employer. Charles Paget presented them to Don Bernard Mendoza, who had lately been ap- pointed ambassador from Spain to France, and he, to his eternal disgrace, encouraged the atrocious project, which, however, was to be executed without the knowledge of the Queen of Scots. So careful were Morgan and Paget on that score, that they extorted a promise from the wild fanatic, Ballard, that he should on no account introduce himself to her attention, nor seek to hold communication with her in any way.^ The conspirators arrived in England 1 Labanoff, vi. 338. See also her letter to Parsons, Ibid., p. 335. ^ Carte ; State Trials ; Murdin ; Tytler ; Labanoff. 394 MAEY STUART. early in June. In London they met Anthony Babington of Dethick, a young Roman Catholic gentleman of good fortune and ancient family, who, residing near Wingfield Manor, had become so deeply interested for the captive Queen that his greatest ambition was to devote his life to her service. He had been for years one of the most zealous and successful of her Derbyshire adherents, both in the transmission of her letters, and receiving and convey- ing to herself those written to her by her friends, up to the period when Sir Amyas Paulet was appointed her keeper, whose vigilance effectually prevented any further communi- cation.^ When the conspirators informed Babington of the projected invasion for Mary's deliverance, he observed "that it was unlikely either invasion or insurrection could succeed during Elizabeth's life, for an open attempt in Mary's favour would cause her keeper to perform his threat of slaying her." Ballard then confided Savage's determination to assassinate Elizabeth, and declared that the Pope's anathema would sanction the crime. Babington objected to the danger and uncertainty of trusting the execution of tbe design to one man only. His friend Pooley, another of Walsingham's spies, who was admitted to the discussion, suggested " that five companions should be associated with Savage to make all sure ; adding, " that he could himself provide a hun- dred men, who would surprise Chartley Castle, and carry off the captive Queen without Paulet being able to harm her." The excitable temperament of Anthony Babington kindled into a blaze of romantic enthusiasm ; he was ready to do and dare anything to assist in breaking the chains in which Mary Stuart had languished so many years. Five persons of his own religion,^ equally reckless as himself, united in the plot for the assassination of Elizabeth. Their names were Abingdon, the son of the Queen's late cofferer ; Tllney, one ^ of her band of gentlemen pensioners ; Barnwell, Charnock, and Titchbourne. These were all men of family. The ^ Murdin, p. 527. ^ State-Paper Correspondence. Carte. State Trials. 2 Hardwicke Papers, p. 226. Tytler's History of Scotland. Camden. MARY STUART. 395 unsound state of Babington's brain may be surmised from his folly and egotism in having a picture painted with the portraits of the six associate assassins, and his own in the centre of them, declaring, in a Latin motto, that " they were allied with him in a perilous enterprise/' A letter from the Queen of Scots was delivered to him by an unknown boy on the 6th of July, gently reproaching him for discontinuing his correspondence with her, and asking him, " if any foreign letters had been confided to him for her, to send them by the bearer. The draught of this letter had been enclosed for Mary to copy in the envelope of a letter from Morgan, which had been opened and re-sealed in Walsingham's office. Morgan was very unlikely to have sent it himself, having begged Mary to have " no communication with Ballard, who was engaged in an enterprise with which it was not meet she should be concerned.'" The same objection would apply to Bab- ington. It was clearly the intention of her friends to keep the plot from the knowledge of the captive Queen, who could render them no aid in its execution, and was so closely watched, that great danger of discovery would be incurred, in which case disclosures would be involved that might cost many lives besides her own. On the other hand, it was the great aim of Walsingham and his assistants to criminate her by producing evidence that she had encouraged a plot for the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, that they might bring her to the scaffold under colour of justice. Babington, who was entirely under the influence of his supposed friend Pooley, was induced to write and send through Gifford a letter to Mary, acquainting her " that it was the determination of himself and friends to effect, at risk of their lives and fortunes, her deliverance from prison, and the despatch of the usurping competitor;" and that " on the receipt of her approbation they would engage to succeed or die."^ She was also requested "to authorise them to act in her name, to promise rewards, and to direct them in their proceedings." It is difficult to believe that a ^ Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 345. 2 Ibid,, vol. vi.p. 361. 396 MARY STUART. letter so obviously calculated to commit both writer and respondent, was not interpolated for that very purpose in passing through the hands of Walsingham and his cun- ning decipherer Phillipps. It is worthy of notice that Bab- ington sent his letter for Mary Stuart on the 6th of July, which was instantly despatched, not to her, but to Walsing- ham, who had it forwarded next day to Chartley by Phil- lipps, which trusty functionary, on the point of starting, wrote to his patron, recommending him " to sign a paper touching the recompense that was to be given to Glfiford, and have the warrant prepared for the arrest of Ballard/' The latter measure was considered premature, it being necessary to have matter more positive against Mary than her willingness to owe her liberation to the prowess of an invading army.^ Phillipps and the seal-opener Gregory arrived at Chartley on the 8th of July, but Babington's letter was not delivered to Mary till the 12th, for nothing could induce the Burton brewer to come before the usual day for bringing the beer to the Castle. A ciphered note was returned by Nau to Babington, promising an answer in three days ; this was opened, read, communicated to Sir Amyas Paulet, and for- warded to Walsingham. But if Nau had read a letter from Babington, containing the startling revelations that after- wards were produced in Phillipps's decipherment, it is morally certain that he could not have communicated its purport to his royal mistress ; for the manner in which she writes on the 13th of July to her faithful counsellor and confidential servant. Archbishop Beton, shows that she was perfectly unconscious that any projects against Elizabeth's life were in contemplation. In the first place, which would have been incompatible with the anticipated death of that Princess, she expresses an earnest hope " that the Queen of England may be induced to receive Bess Pierrepont (whose residence at Chartley Castle had ceased to be desirable) into her service," 2 Then, so far from alluding to any fortunate contingency for her own future destiny, she says : — ^ State-Paper Correspondence. Tytler. State Trials, ^ Labanoff, vol, vi. p. 368. MARY STUART. 397 " I know not what resolution will be taken about my change of abode and the passport for my servants, but my guardian has for some days shown himself much more rigorous and insolent than usual, cutting oif entirely all access to this mansion, and presuming to retrench the ex- penses of my household in defiance of the order that was issued in regard to it last year by the Queen of England and her Council. If he con- tinue these retrenchments, it is for the purpose of making my servants leave this prison, by rendering it intolerable to them. I have heard a rumour, but a vague one, that my said keeper is to be discharged at the end of the summer, and I am to be re-committed to the charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury, of which it would be difi&cult to persuade me. It is also said that all the English servants in my household will be dismissed. But I dare not appear cognisant of anything unless my keeper introduce the subject. Let me know by the usual channel if you obtain information on these points. In truth I should not be sorry to change my host, for he is one of the strangest and most ferocious men I have ever met with ; in a word, more fit for a jailer of criminals than for the guard of a lady, espe- cially of my rank and quality. Moreover, if anything were to happen to the Queen of England, I should consider my life very insecure in his hands." This was a remark Mary had been accustomed to make whenever she suspected she was likely to be consigned to the keeping of the Earl of Huntingdon ; and as Sir Amyas Paulet was considered entirely under Leicester's influence, her repetition of it here has certainly no more reference to the expectation of a violent death for Elizabeth, than it had seventeen years before, and simply alludes to the pos- sible demise of that Princess according to the course of nature, the Tudor sovereigns not being remarkable for longevity, and Elizabeth having attained within three years the age of the oldest of her line. If Mary had really been cognisant of the fact that a junta of fanatic desperadoes had pledged themselves to accomplish the murder of her powerful foe, her excitable temperament would have prompted her to enter into the subject with her old and faithful counsellor, at least as unreservedly as, if we are to credit Phillipps's decipherment of the letter alleged to have been written by Nau, in her name, to Babington four days later, she did to a man whom she had never seen. Mary had been so seriously ill that spring with inflam- mation in her side, in addition to all her other ailments, that her recovery had for many weeks been despaired of by her physician, and her keeper himself reported her case 398 MARY STUAET. as hopeless.^ In her letter to Mauvissiere, of the 31st of March, she complains that she has been "sorely vexed with defluxions, ever since the beginning of February; but is now a little better, except the pain in her right arm. It is a heritage," continues the poor sufferer, " that I have ac- quired during the last seventeen years of my imprison- ment, which I fear will only end with my life. I beseech God to grant me the patience requisite."^ She was so much amended in June that Sir Amyas Paulet reports to Walsingham : " The Scottish Queen is getting a little strength, and is sometimes carried, in a chair, to one of the adjoining ponds to see the diversion of duck-hunting ; but she is not able to walk without support on each side." Now, for her to declare herself, as in the decipherment of the letter to Morgan of July 17, " able to handle a cross-bow, and to gallop after the hounds," would imply a cure not less than miraculous. Phillipps tells Walsingham, on the 14th of that month : " She begins to recover health and strength, and did ride about in her coach yesterday. I had a smiling countenance, but I thought of the verse — * Cv/m tibi dicit Ave — sicut ab hoste cave ' — of which the literal meaning is, ' When he cries, All hail ! as of an enemy beware.' " The like mysterious instincts of natural repulsion, which warn the bird of the antagonism of the lurking cat or ser- pent, rendered Mary uneasy at the proximity of this zealous labourer for her destruction. She mentions him at the close of the long letter she wrote to Archbishop Beton on the 17th of July, expressing her opinion that " he had come to Chartley Castle in the capacity of an associate jailer with Sir Amyas Paulet." She commences this curious, and hitherto unnoticed, passage with an allusion to the current report that she was about to be transferred to other hands. " They inform me that it is now said I am to be placed in the keeping of my Lord St John, according to what was Paulet's Correspondence, in the State-Paper Office. sLabanoff, vol. vi. pp. 368, 369. Paulet to Walsingham, June 3, 1586. State-Paper Office MS. MARY STUAET. 399 purposed when Nau was in London, this man here [Sir Amyas Paulet] being generally much afHicted by siekness, and now reduced to such extremity that it is necessary for them to provide another in his place. In order to relieve him, they have already sent him a deputy named Philllpps, whom I take to be the same who was formerly employed here as a spy for Burleigh and Walsingham." This, being a literal translation from her genuine idio- matic French, is surely better entitled to credit than Phil- lipps's decipherment of a passage relating to himself in the very suspicious letter Mary is alleged to have written to Morgan the self-same day, July 17th, for it must be evident that she could not have written both : — " I remember of one Phillipps, a gentleman who you had dealt withal long ago, to have served me about Secretary Walsingham. There is one of that name who hath been here five or six days with my keeper about Christmas, and whom about that time I made be sought about to try if he had been your man or not. But neither on his side or mine could know the same no more than I have yet done ; in the space of a fortnight he hath of late been here and departed ; but this day, albeit, both myself and some of mine have given him occasion to have declared himself at hunting and otherwise, if he had been the man you wrote of." There can be no doubt it was the same person ; for albeit there were many spies and forgers in Walsingham's staff, of plot-nursers and informers, there was but one Phil- lipps, and he, like Parry, had to a certain degree succeeded in insinuating himself into Morgan's confidence. " This PhiUipps," pursues the decipherment, " is of low stature, >, slender every way, dark, yellow-haired on the head, and clear yellow-bearded, eated in the face with small pockes, of short sight, nearly thirty years of age by appearance."^ Whether sketched by the royal victim of his nefarious acts, or by his own more business-like pen, with the calm official minuteness of a man accustomed to write and vis4 passports, the description must have been true to life, so well does it accord with the mean and detestable nature of his voca- tion. The captive Queen's presentiment that the visit of this sinister-looking stranger to Chartley Castle boded her no 1 Phillipps to Walsingham, State-Paper Office MS., July 17, 1586. 400 MAEY STUAET. good, led her to write to the French Ambassador : " Try, if you please, to find out what the real errand is of a gentle- man of the name of Phillipps, who has been sojourning here within the last month, and is treated with much considera- tion and deference." The letter in which this passage occurs is also dated July 17th, the same day as the ciphered one to Morgan, in which the surmise that Phillipps might pos- sibly be a secret agent for her service is expressed, and the description of his person introduced. No less than seven long letters, including the important one to Babington, produced in evidence against her at her mock trial, are alleged to have been written by Mary on that identical 17th of July, N.S., which, if printed, would occupy about fifty pages of this volume.^ Six of these let- ters were put into ciphered characters, a work of time and care, by her secretaries Nau and Curie, from her minutes in French ; but even if we may suppose they began to write them on the 13th, the day on which Nau dated his letter to Babington, promising an answer in three days, it is impossible to believe all this slow difficult work was accomplished in the interval, especially as Mary wrote a letter to Chateauneuf on the 18th, and one to Archbishop Beton on the 16th, which must have fully occupied her personal attention on those days. Her letter to the latter of the 17th of July, being in her own genuine French, not ciphered, affords strong presumptive evidence that she was not cognisant of any conspiracy against Elizabeth's life ; for instead of urging the immediate landing of a foreign army to support her cause, as she undoubtedly would have done, in anticipation of the stormy struggle likely to occur between herself and the Protestant claimants of the regal succession, in the event of Babington and his accomplices effecting their purpose, she earnestly desires " that the King of Spain may be induced to postpone his enterprise for the invasion of England, till a peace with ' To Anthony Babington, July 17— Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 385-94. To Charles Paget, July 17— Labanoff, p. 399-403. To Sir Francis Englefield, July 17 — Labanoff, p. 405-12, To the Archbishop of Glasgow — Labanoff", p. 413-419. To Thomas Morgan— Labanoff", p. 421-28. To Chateauneuf— Labanoff, 427-31. To Mendoza— Labanoff", p. 432-33. I MARY STUAET. 401 France may place more troops at his command, and allow the Duke de Gnise to co-operate effectually in the design by the breaking-up of the armies. She says she wishes to have 12,000 crowns sent to her as soon as possible — 4000 may do to begin with, to assist her in getting out of her prison, and suggests that this money may be packed in two secret caskets, each casket to be concealed in a leather bag full of cases of Spanish and Italian sweetmeats, and sent by the new servants she is expecting from France ; and she will send a memorandum, openly , naming the sweetmeats she wishes to be procured, in order to disarm suspicion, eatables being less rigorously examined than other things." ^ It was obviously in the power of Phillipps to give such a colour to the deci- pherments of Mary's letters as might suit the purpose of his patron, or he might invent ad libitum^ as the originals were not produced to test the fidelity of his version of her letters.^ But it is a strong point in her favour, that, in her uninter- polated French letter of the same date, to the oldest and most confidential of her servants, there is not the slightest allusion to the enterprise for Elizabeth's assassination, or the contingencies that might be expected to arise from such an event. Then on this momentous 17th of July, when, if we may believe Phillipps's decipherment of her long letter to Babing- ^ Labanoff, vol. v. p. 414-18. ^ Wd-lsingham's practice of procuring decipherments to suit his own pur- poses is detected by the evidence of his own pen, in the following commis- sion addressed to one of his confidential instruments, supposed to be Phillipps 5 " I send you herewith enclosed another letter written from the King of Spain to some nobleman within the realm, which was delivered unto me by her Majesty, together with the other letter of Don Bernardino remaining in your hands, lohich, if it may he deciphered, will, I hope, lay open the treachery that reigneth among us. Her Majesty hath promised to double your pension, and to be otherwise good unto you. And so I com- mit you to God.— F. Walsingham. The 30th Nov. 1585." Cotton. MSS., Calig. C. ix. f. 455. Phillipps, according to his own voluntary confession, beguiled a gentleman of the name of Owen into correspondence with an imaginary person, in whose name he wrote letters, in order to draw him into a plot. Who can believe, then, that he and his patron resisted the temptation of interpolating and altering the letters of Mary Stuart which fell into their hands, or that the alleged decipherments of those, of which the original documents were never produced, and have never been seen by any one, were fairly rendered ? VOL, VII. 2 C 402 MARY STUART. ton, Mary Stuart was setting her life on the desperate chances of a madman's game, we find her occupying her time and attention on matters of such comparatively trivial import as the vexation caused by the perversity of her young English favourite, Bess Pierrepont, of whom she thus writes to Morgan : — " By your next especially show me what you mean in your last by ad- vising me to ask Sir Gervais Clifton's consent in bestowing of Besse Pierre- pont, whom I have never sought to bestow in marriage on any, neither before or since I caused the same to be propounded, at the Countess of Shrewsbury's solicitation and by her means, to the Lord Percy, now Earl of Northumberland ; whereof I think you have heard I have had no other intention for her of any other, but rather contrarywise have suted [made suit], by the Queen of England's license, this half-year or more, to be rid of her. By reason she is now at her best, brought up my bedfellow and at board" \i. e. she has shared with me both board and bed] " ever since she had four years of age, so carefully and virtuously, I trust, as if she had been my own daughter; and failing of mine own means accordingly to have her pre- ferred [promoted], that her own parents, for the discharge of my conscience and my honourable using of her, might relieve me of her loss of time and other inconveniences, after that I had offered her as a piece of my nourri- ture, to serve the Queen of England, which is not granted ; but yet on a sudden they would have had her from me, which I could not yield to, for that such honest furniture " [respectable outfit] " as I then had in hand for her departure was not yet ready, as she and it both are now for an hour's warning. But, to be plain, I would be the rather quit of her, for that I see too much of her grandmother's nature in her behaviour every way, notwithstanding all my pains for the contrary." ' In a letter of the same date to the French Ambassador, there is also a long paragraph about " the little damsel," as IMary designates her offending young English favourite, repeating her desire " of restoring her to her father, having performed the duty of a good mistress by wishing to have her preferred to the service of the Queen her sovereign.^" Queen JMary's objection to the courtship between her confidential secretary and the granddaughter of so inimical a person as the Countess of Shrewsbury, though only pru- dent on her part, was not the less displeasing to the lovers. Bess Pierrepont had, it seems, been sullen and resentful in her demeanour to her previously indulgent mistress. Nau would naturally be deeply hurt at so determined an oppo- ' Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 424-5. Ibid., vol. vi. p. 428. MAEY STUART. 403 sition to his union with the object of his long and passionate attachment, when his fellow - secretary, Curie, had been encouraged to wed Barbara Mowbray on the shortest pos- sible acquaintance, and gratified by the Queen with a bridal present. Jealous and indignant feelings were, of course, excited by conduct so different towards himself and the fair Pierrepont. There was, withal, the prospect of the sunshine of his prison-house being inexorably banished by the arbi- trary will of their royal mistress, repeated in her letter to Morgan, in terms which, though his own name was not mentioned in reference to her cause of displeasure with his beloved, were calculated to throw him into a tumult of rage and grief when communicated to him by Curie, who kept no secrets from him. This curious prison episode, which has escaped all pre- vious historians of Mary Stuart's life, materially affects the credibility of the charges brought against her, by proving that Nau, whom she was thus crossing in his fondest wishes, could not have been on such terms with her as might have inclined him to bring himself under the peril of rack, gibbet, and quartering-knife, by writing the letter to Babington that was produced in evidence against her, or that, under these circumstances, she would have put her life into Nau's power, by employing him as the instrument of a correspond- ence like that, having no security withal that it might not be revealed by him to Bess Pierrepont, and by her to Lady Shrewsbury. In the midst, however, of these domestic broils, agitations, and heart-burnings, the important letter to Babington of the 17th of July, alleged " to have been written by Nau from Mary's French notes," was addressed to Babington, and despatched in the usual way. Paulet, to whom it was delivered by " the honest man," as the con- federates termed the Burton brewer, handed it to Phillipps, by whom a decipherment of the contents was transmitted to Walsingham, and after a delay of ten days, the letter was re-sealed and sent to Babington. Camden, writing with Burleigh's private notes and papers before him, affirms " that a postscript was cunningly added in the same cha- racters, inquiring the names of the six gentlemen." 404 MARY STUART. The original of this letter is not in existence, and as no postscript is appended to any of the contemporary copies, neither does it appear that any allusion was made to one at Mary's trial, the fact of the forgery has reasonably been doubted. Nevertheless Camden was, as he always is, cor- rect in his information ; for the rough draft intended for that purpose, in Phillipps's hand, with some words struck out, and others substituted as more appropriate, was found by Mr Tytler in the State-Paper Office, endorsed by Phil- lipps, " The Postscript of the Scottish Queen's Letter to Babington." This has been deciphered and verified by Mr Lemon, the erudite keeper of Her Majesty's State Papers, and is as follows : — " I would be glad to know the names and qualities of the six gentlemen which are to accomplish the designment, for that it may be I shall be able, upon knowledge of the parties, to give you some further advice necessary to be followed therein, as also from time to time particularly how you proceed, and as soon as you may for the same purpose who be, already, and how far every one privy hereunto." This postscript, though so carefully composed and put into cipher, for the purpose of being brought in evidence of Mary's knowledge and co-operation in the plot against ] Elizabeth's life, was not produced for this good reason : ! the important matter it contained was introduced, in much stronger and more criminating language, into the body of the letter, where she is made to ask, " By what means the six gentlemen deliberated to proceed ? " ^ And again, after^ mentioning the necessity of foreign troops and auxiliarie: from the King of Spain, in flat contradiction to the urgent desire expressed in her genuine letter to Archbishop Beton, of the 13th of July, that the invasion might be postponed till after the peace with France, is added : — " Affairs being thus prepared, and forces in readiness, both without and within the realm, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work » taking order, upon the accomplishment of the said design, I may be sud- denly transported out of this place . . ,• . Now for that there can be no , certain day appointed for the accomplishment of the said gentlemen's design, to the end that others may be in readiness to take me from hence, I would that the said gentlemen had always about them, or at least at Court, ^ LabanoflT, vol. vi. p. 389. MARY STUART. four stout men furnished with good and speedy horses, to come with all diligence as soon as the said design shall be accomplished, to advertise thereof those that shall be appointed for my transporting, before my keeper can have advice of the execution of the said design, or time to fortify this house." ' The artful introduction of these passages, which are denounced by Prince Labanoff as decided interpolations, rendered the addition of the postscript which Phillipps had, as the existence of the draft proves, prepared for the occasion, unnecessary. It was easy for him to introduce anything that suited the purpose of his employer, as the original was never produced, but only his copy of his own decipherment. The interpolation of the latter passage touch- ing her rescue after the design shall have been accomplished, is proved by the flat contradiction that follows in the same letter, where she entreats her friends " not to move," — mean- ing, not to allow, as in the case of the Northern Kebellion, any insurrectionary movement to take place, without the assurance of effectual foreign succour, " and by all means to get her withdrawn first from the place where she now is, and either surrounded with a good army, or put in proper security, till their own forces be assembled and the foreign troops landed ; or it would give sufficient excuse," continues the letter, " to this Queen, if she took me again, to incarce- rate me in some hole whence 1 should never come forth again, and to persecute with the utmost extremity all who had assisted me in it ; which I should regret much more than any ill that might befall myself." ^ This bears the stamp of Mary's genuine inditing, and is incompatible with her complicity in the design for Eliza- beth's assassination ; for need she fear aggravated ill-treat- ment, and punishment for her friends, from a dead woman ? It proves withal that the enterprise to which she was con- senting was a rising of her partisans for her deliverance, supported by a foreign invasion, and that she dreaded a premature revolt as certain to be attended with the worst possible consequences to herself and friends. She proceeds to suggest three plans, either of which might be adopted in the enterprise for her escape : — 1 Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 389. ^ Ibid., p. 390. 406 MARY STUART. \ " The first, as I am taking the air on horseback on a plain between this place and Stafford, where few people are ordinarily met, some fifty or sixty men, well armed and mounted, might come and seize me, as they might easily do, having generally not more than eighteen or twenty horsemen with me, armed with pistols only. The second is, to come at midnight and set fire to the barns, stables, and out-buildings, which you know are near the house, and while my keeper and his servants are running there to extinguish it, your party, every one wearing a mark to distinguish him, might surprise the house, where I hope you would be assisted by the few servants I have. The third is, that when the carts, which generally come very early in the morning, arrive here, you could join them in the disguise of carters, and contrive to upset some of the carts under the great gateway, to prevent the gates from shutting ; then make yourselves masters of the house, and carry me off before the soldiers could muster in.any efficient numbers to prevent it, as their lodgings are much scattered, some of half a mile distant, and others a full mile from the house." ^ There is no reason to doubt that this passage was a genuine portion of the letter Mary caused Nau to write to Babington. That unhappy man did not receive it till the 29th of July. He was then in London, and wrote to her on the 3d of August in reply, praying her not to despond. " Her cause," he said, " was the cause of God and of the Church, and no danger, no difficulty, should prevent him and his friends from risking their lives for its success.'' 2 No allusion is made in this letter to any of the suspicious passages in the one he had just received, although the most important and pressing ; perhaps they were not introduced till Phillipps made the copy of the alleged decipherment that was pro- duced on Mary's trial. Mary's mind could have been little occupied with themes of a tragical nature at this time, for we find her, on the 18th of July, the very day after the letter to Babington was despatched, calmly employing herself in looking over her numerous pieces of embroidery and pictorial needlework, fin- ished and unfinished, in the charge of Mademoiselle Beaure- gard, and superintending the classing and drawing up a curi- ous descriptive inventory of these rich and rare specimens of feminine taste and industry, which was made in her pre- ^ Labanoff, vol. vi. p. 396. * The letter is printed as a whole in Prince Labanoff's Collection, with the suspected interpolations in italics enclosed within brackets. Tytler has an excellent Appendix note on the subject, vol. viii. MARY STUAET. 407 sence. In this list we notice one piece " with fifty-two flowers of various kinds in very tine work, all drawn from nature ; " another with no less than " a hundred and twenty- four varieties of birds, likewise drawn to the life;" and a third with " fifty-two fish of different species." The history of Esther and Haman, in squares, besides several rich beds, cushions, and chair-covers, in progress/ A woman whose pastimes and propensities took so elegant and innocent a turn, was unlikely to have embarked in projects of a bloody and barbarous nature, which emanate from restless minds, unaccustomed to the peaceful and sedative labours of the needle. Elizabeth, alarmed at the danger to which she naturally considered her life was exposed, while so many desperate men were at large, prevented Walsingham from playing out the game any further. She insisted the conspirators should be taken into custody. The discovery of a plot against her Majesty's person and government was then announced, simultaneously with the arrest of the deluded men. All the bells in London rang, and bonfires and illu- minations were made to commemorate her happy escape.2 Mary and her servants, rigorously secluded from all inter- course with the outer world, remained in ignorance of every- thing beyond the walls of Chartley Castle. So cautious was her keeper of listeners within, that when Wade, one of the under-secretaries, came to him with instructions from the Queen and Council, they held their private conference m the open fields. The resolution then adopted was exe- cuted on the 8th of August, when Sir Amyas Paulet in- vited the unsuspecting captive to take an airing with him on horseback. Mary readily acceded to the proposition, the warm summer weather having so greatly improved her health that she was now able again to use equestrian exer- cise, which she preferred to any other. Accompanied by her two secretaries, and others of her prison retinue, and under a stronger guard than usual, she rode from Chartley ' Labanoff, vol. vii. — Appendix 239, pp. 40, 41. 2 Camden's Annals. Tytler. Lingard. 408 MARY STUART. towards the neighbouring park of Tixall, according to her keeper's direction. They had not advanced very far before they were met by a company of horsemen. If the heart of the captive Queen, on their first appearance, fluttered with a momentary thrill of hope in the expectation that these were " the gentlemen " whom Babington had as- sured " her were associated in her service, and bound under the most solemn pledges to rescue her or die in the attempt/' the more terrible must have been the shock she experienced when Sir Thomas Gorges rode forward, and told her " that, in consequence of the discovery of her share in a horrible con- spiracy against the life of the Queen his sovereign, his orders were to conduct her to Tixall." ^ Mary indignantly denied the accusation, and began to expostulate in angry and reproach- ful words against this sudden change of abode. He was resolute that she should not return to Chartley, and pre- pared to enforce compliance with his requisition. Mary's spirit rose, and turning to the gentlemen of her suite, she passionately exclaimed, " Will you suffer these traitors to lay hands on your Queen, without interposing in her de- fence ? " Nau and Curie were instantly arrested, and forced away. She perceived her party was too weak for resist- ance, and passively permitted Sir Amyas Paulet to lead her to Tixall, the mansion of Sir Walter Aston, about three miles from Chartley.^ There she was separated from all her servants, and confined to two small rooms, without books, pen, ink, or paper, for seventeen days, in utter soli- tude.^ There is no reason to believe that even a change of apparel, or the solace of a female attendant, was allowed her during that dreadful period of horror and suspense. How she existed through it, is a mystery on which no record casts a light. " But there's mercy in every place ; " and as Mary Stuart, 1 Wade's Memorial. Sir Amyas Paulet's P. S.— State-Paper Office MSS. Tytler. Camden. Lingard. Chalmers. * Wade's Memorial. Sir Amyas Paulet's P.S.— State-Paper Office MSS. Tytler. ' Liugard, Camden says she was led about from one gentleman's seat to another during that period. This it a mistake ; she was secluded from every eye, and kept at Tixall. MARY STUAET. 409 under all her trials, trusted in God, and prayed for patience and support, she doubtless was not deserted, but found some tender-hearted woman, wife, sister, daughter, or domestic of Sir Walter Aston to compassionate her, supply her wants, and perform all tender feminine offices for her, in her lone- liness and destitution, for never was she forsaken by her own sex. Lest, however, the royal captive should excite too much commiseration in her misery. Sir Amyas Paulet thought proper to remain at Tixall to keep guard over her, while Wade and the other commissioners ^ proceeded to Chartley, in obedience to their instructions, and seized her papers, ciphers, seals, and jewels. Elizabeth particularly required that all the caskets belonging to the Queen of Scots should be transmitted to her.^ Alas ! what did she expect to find in these private depositories of the poor relics of her hated rival ? — had she not already possessed herself, by means inconsistent with the honour of a Queen of Eng- land, of Mary's precious cordons of pearls ? Other of the choicest jewels that Mary once could boast, had been deli- vered to Sir William Drury for her acceptance at the fall of Edinburgh Castle.^ She must have been disappointed when she received the last remaining spoils of her royal cousin, a few rings, chains, and trinkets of little value, among which was a toy, formerly presented by herself, with the history of Pyramus and Thishe ; her own miniature on ivory, and that of the old Countess of Lennox, Mary's mother-in-law ; a little book of gold, with the portraits of Francis II. and his mother. Another of these pretty golden books, when unfolded, displayed no pledge or memorial of guilty love for Both well, but the united miniatures of Mary, Darnley, and their son.* All Mary's papers were packed up in boxes, and trans- mitted to Elizabeth. The triumphant satisfaction with which she received and entered into an eager personal ex- amination of the secret correspondence of her hated rival, was somewhat alloyed by finding numerous letters from 1 Paulet's Letters in the State-Paper Office. 2 Tytler, vol. viii. p. 298. ^ Labanoff. * Inventory of Jewels belonging to Mary Stuart, seized at Chartley, August 1586 — Labanoff", vol. vii., Appendix. 410 MARY STUAET. many of her own peers, full of professions of affection and respect for Mary, accompanied with offers of service. With- out showing any public demonstrations of her anger, Eliza- beth made the offending parties, who had thus committed themselves, feel the necessity of vindicating their loyalty by acting, in the impending proceedings against Mary's life, as the enemies of her they had desired to befriend.^ It is a striking fact, a fact that must surely be regarded as a strong presumption in Mary's favour, that, in all the! voluminous mass of papers thus suddenly seized, not one was produced in evidence against her. As it had been twenty years before, when her private papers at Holyrood fell into the hands of Morton, Lethington and others, who desired to get up a case against her, so was it now ; no genuine documents for that purpose could be found. The pathetic sonnet, written by Mary in French, was found among her private papers seized at Chartley, — " Que suisje, helas / et de quoi sert ma vie ? " " AlaSj what am I ! What my life become ? A corse existing when the pulse hath fled ; An empty shadow, mark for conflicts dread, Whose only hope of refuge is the tomb. Cease to pursue, 0 foes, with envious hate, My share of this world's glories hath been brief; Soon will your ire on me be satiate, For I consume and die of mortal grief. And ye, my faithful friends, who hold me dear, n In dire adversity, and bonds, and woe, I lack the power to guerdon love sincere ; Wish, then, the close of all my ills below. That purified on earth, with sins forgiven, My ransomed soul may share the joys of heaven." Sir Amyas Paulet brought Mary back to Chartley on the 25th of August. All the time she had been at Tixall he had not spoken a word to her, and declared, " he never in- tended to speak to her again.'' When she was about to enter her coach, and saw Sir Walter Aston and other gentlemen in waiting to escort her, she exclaimed, with ^ Camden's Annals. Strangways. MARY STUAET. 411 learful emotion, " Good gentlemen, I am innocent, God is my witness that I have never practised against the Queen my sister's life ! " The poor, who had been accustomed to share her charity, crowded round her as usual, to supplicate for alms, " Alas,'' said she, weeping, " I have nothing for you. All has been taken from me. I am as much a beggar as vourselves." ^ Her first inquiry, on arriving at Chartley Castle, was for Curie's wife, whose situation demanded her tenderest sym- pathy. On being informed that she had brought forth her first-born child at that sorrowful season, Mary hastened to visit her before she entered her own chamber, and bade her " be of good comfort," promising " to answer for her husband in all that might be objected against him." The infant, a little girl, remained unbaptised, because Mary's priest had been removed ; and as it was weakly, she asked Sir Aymas Paulet, who had rudely followed her into the lying-in cham- ber, " to allow his minister to baptise it, with such sponsors as he could procure, so as it might bear her name." This being churlishly refused, she left the chamber, but presently returning, took the babe upon her knee, and aware that her church allowed the laity to administer the rite of bap- tism in cases of emergency, took water from a basin, and cast it on the child's face, saying, as she did so, " Mary, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost." ^ Then she proceeded to her own chamber. Mr Darrell, the house-steward, offered the keys of the door to Bastian, who, in obedience to the command of his royal mistress, refused to receive them. Darrell was then ordered to unlock the doors himself. When Mary saw that her coffers and desks had been rifled, and her papers and jewels taken away, she passionately exclaimed — " There are two things of which I cannot be robbed, my English blood and my Catholic faith, in which by the grace of God I intend to die." ^ One cabinet in her bedroom, strange to say, had not been violated — that which was supposed to contain 1 Letters of Sir Amyas Paulet— State-Paper Ofiace MSS. » Ibid. " Ibid. 412 MAEY STUAET. her money. Sir Amyas Paulet wrote immediately to Walsingham to inform him of Wade's omission. In con- sequence of the directions he received in reply, he sent for Mr Richard Bagot, a neighbouring magistrate, with whom he rudely entered the presence of the captive Queen, and, regardless of her suffering state — for the agitation, dis- tress, and anxiety she had gone through had brought on a very severe access of her old malady, neuralgic pain in the neck and arm, accompanied with swelling and inflamma- tion, which had bereft her of the use of her right hand and confined her to her bed — told her, " that in consequence of her former bad practices, and doubting she would persist in the same by corrupting underhand some bad members of the State, he was expressly commanded to take her money into his own hands, and advised her to deliver it up quietly."^ Mary stoutly refused to comply with this de- mand, and with many bitter words, expressive of her dis- dain both for his employers and himself, declared she would not resign the key. Sir Amyas called his servants, and told them to bring bars to break open the door. Per- ceiving the uselessness of further resistance, she submitted, and saw him seize five rolls of canvass, containing five thousand French crowns and two leathern bags, whereof the one had one hundred and four pounds in gold, the other three pounds in silver. The silver he generously left with her, because she declared " she had no more money in the house, and that she was indebted to her servants for their wages." In Nau's chamber he found two bags, one containing nine hundred, the other two hundred and eighty-six pounds and a chain valued at a hundred pounds. In Curie's chamber he found two canvass rolls, each containing a thousand crowns : these, he was informed, " were Queen Mary's gift to Mrs Curie on her marriage ; " nevertheless he sealed and took possession of them, with the rest of the plunder, in his Sovereign's name, and delivered them into Bagot's charge. The pleasure with which Paulet executed 1 Letters of Sir A. Paulet— State-Paper MSS. Kobertson's Appendix. MARY STUART. 413 a commission that would have been most painful to almost any other man, is thus testified bj his own pen : — " I feared lest the people might have dispersed this money in all this time, or have hidden the same in some secret corners, for doubt whereof I had caused all this Queen's family, from the highest to the lowest, to be guarded in the several places where I found them, so as if I had not found the money with quietness, I had been forced to search, first all their lodgings, and then their own persons. I thank God with all my heart as for a singular blessing, that that falleth out so well, fearing lest a con- trary success might have moved some hard conceits in her Majesty." ^ Compassion for the sufferings of the royal captive had, apparently, been manifested by the witnesses of this agi- tating scene in Mary's sick-chamber; remonstrances had perhaps been addressed to the cold-hearted fanatic by his brother magistrate, Mr Bagot — few English gentlemen being sufficiently stoical to see a helpless and afflicted woman exposed to treatment so barbarous without protest- ing against it ; for Paulet scornfully observes, " Others shall excuse their foolish pity as they may, but for my part, I renounce my part of the joys of heaven, if in anything that I have said, written, or done, I have had any other respect than the furtherance of her Majesty's service.'^ ^ The like hardness is exhibited by him in his treatment of Mary's servants, and his earnest desire of dismissing those he considered superfluous, " for the easing of her Majesty's charges. These," he says, " he has enclosed in three or four separate rooms, to have their food brought to them by his servants, without liberty to leave them till her Majesty's pleasure can be ascertained."' Truth, however, compels him to add, — " But the persons, all save Bastian, are such silly and simple souls, as there was no great cause to fear their practices ; and upon this ground I was of opinion, in my former letters, that all this dismissed train should have followed their mistress until the next remove, and there to have been discharged on the sudden for doubt that the said remove might be delayed, if she did fear or expect any hard measure." ^ In his note of those he considers unnecessary are ^ Letters of Sir Amyas Paulet — State Paper Office MSS. 2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 414 MAEY STUART. an old infirm Frenchman, named Balthazzar, tailor of her, wardrobe; another old servant, named Dldier,"' whom, on ac- count of his helplessness and years, Mary tenderly mentions, and desires to provide for, in her last written memorandum ! touching her faithful servants, on the morning of her death ; "Curie's wife, Bastian's wife, her two daughters and son to which Sir Arayas adds this shrewd note : " If Bastian's wife be discharged, it is like that Bastian will desire to go with his wife, wherein there were no great loss, because he is cunning in his kind, and full of sleights to corrupt young men," — in plain English, that he would do anything in his power to procure friends for his unfortunate Queen in her last dis- tress. The economical master jailer observes, " that Eoger Sharpe, the coachman, and three other men, may be spared, if their mistress be not allowed to ride abroad, and that her three laundresses may be reduced to two." ^ Nothing can afford stronger evidence in Mary's favour than the confidential letter she writes to her kinsman, the Duke de Guise, on the subject of her accusation, and pro- testing her innocence, a protestation she would scarcely have considered it necessary to make to the chieftain of the League, by whom the death of Elizabeth would have been regarded rather as a meritorious action than a crime. Be- sides, had she really been involved in the confederacy, Guise would have been perfectly cognisant of the fact, and it would have been absurd to write to him in the strain she does : " This bearer will tell you how I and my two secre- taries are treated. For God's sake succour and save them, if you can. We are accused of wishing to trouble the State here, and of practising against this Queen's life, or consent- ing to it. I have protested, which is the truth, that I know nothing of the matter. Paulet and his coadjutors say ' they have captured certain letters to one Babington, and to Charles Paget and his brother, which testify this conspiracy, and that Nau and Curie have acknowledged it.' I replied, that my secretaries could not have done so unless they had 1 Labanoff, vol. viL, Appendix — List of Mary's servants at Chartley, Aug. 29, 1586. MARY STUART. 415 been compelled by the force of torture to say more than they knew."^ This is surely the plain unvarnished language of simple verity, written under the impression that her death was at hand, in contemplation of which she thus proceeds : — " Make prayer to God for me ; endeavour to have my body removed hence to be interred in hallowed ground, and have pity on my poor desti- jtute servants, for everything has been taken from me here, and I am texpecting to die by poison or some other secret way, which I am powerless ^o prevent: even this right hand, since my return to this place, has become impotent, and is so swollen and full of pain that I can scarcely hold the pen. Nothing remains to support me but the heart which will not fail me, in the hope that He who called me into being will give me grace and strength to die in His cause, the only honour I desire in this world, and to obtain His mercy in the next. I desire that my body may rest at Rheims, near that of my late good mother, and my heart beside the late king my lord." ^ Meantime her two luckless secretaries were taken under Mr Secretary Walsingham's peculiar care, and separately confined in his lodgings in Westminster Palace, where they were daily plied with alternate threats and promises to induce them to bear testimony against their royal mistress. Both resisted stoutly, though assailed with all the subtlety of cross-questioning on depositions read to one, under pre- tence of having been made by the other, in order to entrap them. As for Nau, he was so intoxicated with his passion for Bess Pierrepont that, for want of a better confidant, he could talk of nothing else to Walsingham's man, Aleyn, who, in the double capacity of spy and jailer, slept in his chamber and kept guard over him.^ One day a servant of Sir Henry Pierrepont called to inquire after M. Nau, and Aleyn told him Nau talked of nothing " but his great love for his young lady." ^ M. d'Esneval, the French Ambassador to Scotland, who was in London on his homeward journey at this exciting period, tells the King his master " that it was reported at the time of Babington's arrest that one of the damsels of the Queen of Scotland, named Pierrepont, had been lodged 1 LabanofF, vol. vi. p. 439. 2 ibid. ' Examination of Aleyn before the Privy Council— State-Paper Office MS., unpublished. * Ibid. 416 MARY STUART. in the Tower/' Whether this were really the case does not appear, nor what became of her when Mary was dragged to Tixall; but it is certain her name does not occur in Paulet's list of Mary's ladies, and that nothing said by her was ever brought against her royal mistress. Nau was, however, naturally anxious on her account during this time of terror, for he was undoubtedly a faithful lover^, having resisted all Cherelles's persuasions " to give up botli Bess Pierrepont and the Scottish Queen's unprofitable service, and marry a rich French widow worth 50,000 crowns, who was willing to accept him." The romanticjj passion of the enamoured French Secretary appears tp have made a great impression on his jailer Aleyn, for he talked of it to all his acquaintance, even to Fowler the spy, who inquired " whether they were promised or plighted to each other." Aleyn said he thought they were ; on which Fowler artfully observed, " In that case, if Nau be set at liberty unharmed, they will marry belike ; for if they be plighted they cannot break it"^ — a remark, no doubt, re- peated, as intended, by Fowler to the prisoner; and oh, how easy it would have been for him to obtain liberty and the object of his alfections. How little did those who have censured Nau as the betrayer of his royal mistress suspect the temptations with which be was assailed. That thorough-paced traitor, Archibald Douglas, curiously inquiring of Aleyn also about Nau, and being told how much he talked of his love for Mistress Elizabeth Pierrepont, sar- castically observed, " I should have fancied Nau had some- what else to think about than love " — expressing, at the same time, ill-will and hatred,^ which, from his perjured lips, may be regarded rather as a testimony of the captive Secretary's fidelity to his royal mistress than the re- verse. Walsingham told the French Ambassador, Cha- teauneuf, on the 28th of August, " that the two Secretaries had confessed more than was necessary to prove the guilt of the Scottish Queen;"* but this was false, for a week later we detect Burleigh writing to Hatton " that ' Teulet's Pieces et Documens relatifs h I'Histoire d'Escosses. 2 Ibid. « Ibid. * Life of Egerton, p. 76-78. MARY STUART. 417 fears for their own safety deterred them, and he thought they would yield somewhat to confirm their mistress's crimes, if they Vere persuaded that themselves might escape, and the blow fall between her head and her shoul- ders — a plain testimony that they had confessed nothing to her prejudice. A fearful trial of their constancy ensued. , Babington and his fellow-conspirators, fourteen in number, (having been found guilty, the first seven, including Babing- ion, were executed, with the most revolting circumstances ^jf barbarity, in Palace Yard, Westminster, being cut down, (embowelled, and quartered alive — a spectacle which the Captive secretaries of Mary Stuart probably witnessed from their prison-lodgings in Westminster Palace. The next day, while the last seven of the conspirators were under- going the like sentence at Tyburn, Nau and Curie were haled before the Lord Chancellor Burleigh and Hatton, and intimidated into admissions which, although ambi- guously worded, and containing really nothing positive against Mary, were afterwards triumphantly produced as evidence of her guilt. They admitted ciphering three , letters to Babington, from minutes written by herself; and, on Phillipps's decipherment of the important one dated 17th July being exhibited, said " it was the same, or like it," and signed attestations to that effect. Nau, however, privily wrote a long declaration or memorial of Mary's proceedings in the business, fully exonerating both himself and his royal mistress from ever practising against Queen Elizabeth's life. This paper he succeeded in getting, toge- ther with a short and earnest supplication for mercy and restoration to liberty in a separate note, delivered to Eliza- beth herself, to the great astonishment and displeasure of Burleigh, to whom they were shown by her ; and he has contemptuously indorsed the memorial " Nau's long decla- ration of things of no importance, sent privately to Queen's Majesty."^ His actual meaning was, that it contained ear- nest protestations that Mary was innocent of the crime, on 1 Burleigh to Hatton, Sept. 4, 1586. 2 Sept. 10, 1586— State-Paper Office MS. VOL. VII. 2 D 418 MARY STUART. suspicion of which it was his determination and that of his colleagues to put her to death. The " strong necessity of their cause," that special plea of the unscrupulous statesmen of the sixteenth century, was doubtless the exciting motive which impelled them to this measure. What prospect could they have anticipated, in the event of her surviving Elizabeth, but a severe reckoning for the barbarous treatment to which ^, they had subjected her ? If Mary had had no other causej of complaint against them, they were well aware that it was impossible for any woman to pardon the gross andi'; calumnious terms in which she had been mentioned, by their official organ, the Attorney-General, on the Duke of Norfolk's trial.^ From the moment they had thus committed themselves they had laboured unweariedly for her destruc- tion, which, but for Elizabeth's determination not to shed royal blood on the scaffold, they had long ago accom- plished. Now they had succeeded in bringing matters into the proper train for that purpose, and the only difficulty was how to proceed. Leicester wrote from Holland, re- commending the safe and silent operation of poison, and sent a reverend divine to Walsingham to persuade him that it was lawful.^ Walsingham, however, determined that a judicial form should be adopted. It was at first proposed to bring Mary to the Tower, but Elizabeth, suspecting that she had a strong party in the city, would not permit it, and, after much vacillation and frequent change of purpose, ap- pointed Fotheringhay Castle,^ in Northamptonshire, as the ^ Trial of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, edited by Thomas Brown. Printed for J. Morphew. London, 1709. 2 Camden's Annals. 3 Fotheringhay Castle was originally built by Mary's ancestor Simon de St Liz, who had married the daughter of Earl Waltheof, by Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, and transmitted the fair appanage of the counties of Huntingdon and Cumberland to David, King of Scotland, his grandson, — an inheritance which, though reft away by the victorious Plantagenet, the sovereigns of Scotland never ceased to claim. Mary Stuart, therefore, accounted herself rightful Countess of Huntingdon, one source probably of the hostility subsisting between her and the Earl, in addition to his being the leader of the Puritan party, the brother-in-law of Leicester, and a rival pretender to the crown, as the representative of " false perjured fleeting Clarence ;" while he was as little pleased with the idea of Mary, if permit- ted to survive Elizabeth, reviving her ancestral claim to the lands and honours of Huntingdon. MARY STUART. 419 place where the pre-doomed victim should be arraigned and executed. On quitting Chartlej, Mary was separated from Mrs Curie, Bastian, Margaret Cawood, and many of her faithful servants, both French and Scotch, who had forsaken coun- try, friends, and living, to become the voluntary companions c^f her durance and privations in a land of exile. How s^d must have been the parting between them and their royal mistress under circumstances so terrible! ( Sir i\.myas Paulet was assisted in conveying Mary from Chartley by Sir William Fitzwilliam, the castellan of Fotheringhay Castle, and Sir Thomas Gorges. The date > assigned for her arrival is 25th September, but there is a Latin inscription in the window of the Manor-house of Abbot's Bromley, called Hill Hall, recording the fact that Mary Queen of Scots passed through that village 21st September 1586, on her way from Chartley, having passed through Burton.' She probably took rest and re- freshment in that secluded mansion. The country through which Mary travelled was not of an inspiring character to one accustomed to the picturesque scenery of Scotland, neither were the historical recollections of those whose destinies had been connected with Fother- inghay Castle cheering, from the luckless Baliols downward, including Mary, Countess of Pembroke, celebrated by Gray, as— ' " Sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn ' That wept her bleeding love." Mary's own immediate progenitor, Kichard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge, was beheaded on a frivolous accusation of conspiring against the life of Henry V. ; his son Richard, Duke of York, ingloriously defeated and slain by a female adversary ; Cecily, Duchess of York, from whom she was ' *the fourth in descent, had there wept away thirty years of sorrowful widowhood, seen the last of her male descend- ants perish tragically, and the name of Plantagenet become extinct. Fotheringhay Castle was the dower palace of the unfortunate Katharine of Arragon, and had been destined ^ Shaw's History of Staffordshire. 420 MARY STUART. | by Henry YIII. for her prison ; but such was her horror of that place, that she declared " to Fotheringhay she would not go unless bound with cart-ropes and carried thither." Edward Courtenaye, Earl of Devonshire, had been sent as a state prisoner to this strong castle by Mary I., on suspicion of his plotting to contract marriage with Eliza- beth and dethrone her. The conviction that her name was doomed to completle the melancholy list of princely sufferers, whose calamitie s were associated with Fotheringhay Castle, elicited from Mary Stuart, on first beholding these gloomy towers from the lane or avenue of approach, which derives its name from that circumstance, the prophetic exclamation, "Perioj" I perish. This last prison of Mary Stuart was a fortress of almost impregnable strength, and surrounded by a double moat, the outer being formed by the river Nen and the mill brook. The outer moat on the north side is seventy-five feet across, and the inner sixty-six. The gateway and front of the mansion were to the north. After passing the drawbridge was a flight of stairs leading to some fair lodgings, and up^ higher to the wardrobe, and to the fetterlock on the north- west corner of the castle, enclosing about sixteen feet in the form of an octagon, with upper and lower chambers. Within the castle was a goodly court leading to a spacious hall, wherein the royal captive afterwards suffered. On the left hand of the court was the chapel, some stately lodgings, the great dining-room, and a large room well garnished with pictures. These were possibly the apartments appro- priated to the use of the unfortunate Mary, where her last melancholy days were worn away.-^ When old Fuller the historian visited Fotheringhay Castle, he observed the fol- lowing couplet from an old ballad written with the point ^ I am indebted to the Rev. Edward Bradley, M.A., Incumbent of Bob- bington, for the communication of several highly interesting local tradi- tions of Fotheringhay, and the valuable present of a series of exquisite origi- nal drawings illustrative of the scenery and antiquities of that historic ground. Among others, the pillars that were removed from Fotheringhay Castle to Conington Park, and the great window from the banquetting-hall in which Mary suffered, which now lights the staircase at the ancient Tal- bot Inn at Oundle. MARY STUART. 421 of a diamond in one of the windows in Mary Stuart's well- known characters, " From the top of all my trust, Mishap hath laid me in the dust." Some nameless local poet of the last century has produced the following descriptive lines, quoted in the interleaved copy of Archdeacon Bonney's History of Fotheringhay : — " In darkest night for ever veil the scene, When thy cold walls received the captive queen ; For this has time erased thee from his page, And filial justice, with vindictive rage, Burst on thy princely towers with whelming tide. Nor left one vestige to relate thy pride." ' 1 Antona's Banks— MS, Poem, 1797. MARY STUART CHAPTEE LXI SUMMARY Commission for Mary's trial— King of France demands that she should be allowed the aid of counsel — Refused— Commissioners arrive at Fother- inghay— Mary receives Mildmay and Barker in her sick-chamber— She denies their authority to try her — Intimidating letter of Elizabeth — Hatton persuades Mary to appear before the Commissioners — Arrange- ment of the Hall — Mary supported into Court by Andrew Melville and her physician — Her dress, deportment, and answers — Array of power and talent against her— Her intrepidity and self-possession— Phillipps's deci- pherments brought forward — She denies their authenticity — Attacks Walsingham— He defends himself— She apologises— Alleged testimony of Nau and Curie against her— She demands them to be confronted with her— No genuine evidence produced— Her pathetic answer to the charges — Second day's proceedings— Mary's eloquence and courage— Taxes her judges with partiality — She appeals to the English Parliament — The Court breaks up without passing sentence — Mary's illness after the departure of the Commissioners— Her calm discussion with Paulet on the scene— Mary Seton writes anxiously from Rheims— James VI. urged to defend his mother— His dialogue with George Douglas— Star- Chamber proceedings against Mary— Intimidation practised on Nau and Curie— Nau stoutly denies the charge — Star-Chamber pronounces Mary guilty of death— Parliament petitions for her execution— Lord Buckhurst sent by Elizabeth to announce her fate to Mary— He reproves Beale's brutality —Mary hears the sentence calmly — Her letter describing Paulet tearing down her canopy, &c.— Resistance of her maids of honour— Her letter after sentence— Remonstrances of her son to Elizabeth— Perfidy of his ambassadors— Mary's sentence proclaimed in London— Deputation an- nounces it to herself— Her reply — Her bed-chamber and bed hung with black— Her forty-fourth birth-day— Her money restored to her by order of Elizabeth — Her last letter to Elizabeth. As soon as Mary Stuart was safely enclosed within the strong walls of Fotheringhay Castle, Sir Thomas Gorges was despatched by her keeper to announce the fact to MAEY STUART. 423 Queen Elizabeth and her council. The particulars of the journey, the deportment of the royal prisoner, together with her sayings and doings by the way, would, doubtless, have added a page of no ordinary interest to her personal history ; but these details being verbally communicated by Sir Thomas Gorges,^ no documentary record relating to them exists, or was apparently permitted to be penned. A week after Mary's arrival at Fotherlnghay, Sir Amyas Paulet writes to Walsingham : " I pray you let me hear from you if it will be expected that I should see my charge often ; which as I do not desire to do, so I do not see any good can come of it, so long as I stand assured that she is forthcoming.'' ^ Surely Mary must have regarded the absence of this hard unsympathising jailer as the greatest favour with which he could indulge her. In the course of a few brief days, however, she was doomed to meet him, not only in the capacity of jailer, but as one of the impartial judges before whom she was required to plead for her life in the hall at Fotherlnghay. A commission was addressed by Queen Elizabeth, on the 5th of October, to "forty-six persons, comprising peers, privy councillors, the Lord Chancellor, five judges of the realm, and the crown lawyers, constituting them a court to inquire into and determine all offences committed against the statute of the 27th of the said Queen, either by Mary, daughter and heiress of James V., late King of Scotland, or by any other person whomsoever/' 3 The Earl of Shrewsbury was named in this commission, but, to Burleigh's great mortification, he excused himself under the plea of indisposition ; so also did ten others whose names were included.^ Chateauneuf, the French Ambassador, demanded, in the name of the King his master, that the " Queen of Scots," whom, both as his sister- in-law and a Queen-dowager of France, tliat Prince was in honour bound to support, "might be allowed counsel, and 1 State- Paper MS., Sept. 25, 1586, unpublished. 2 Ibid., " Fotherlnghay, this present Saturday, Oct. 2, 1586." ^ Camden's Annals. ^ Lingard ; Ellis ; Talbot Papers. 424 MARY STUAET. all things necessary for her defence." After two days' delay, Hatton returned a verbal answer in the name of Queen Elizabeth, " that the Queen's Majesty wanted no advice, neither did she believe he had received orders from the King his master to school her, and that the civil law considered persons in the situation of the Scotch Queen unworthy of counsel/' ^ The libel on the laws of England conveyed in this message, though perfectly consistent with the unconstitutional proceedings of the Tudor Sovereigns, probably emanated not from Elizabeth herself, but her mushroom favourite. Burleigh, who was meantime straining every nerve for Mary's destruction, drew up and circulated a paper entitled, " Note of the indignities and wrongs offered by the Queen of Scots to the Queen's Majesty," ^ beginning with " the assumption of the arms and title of England," when Mary was an irresponsible child in her sixteenth year ; " her re- fusal to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh ; her declaring her- self the legitimate descendant of Henry VII. ; " and " the grave genealogical offence of having a pedigree drawn up to prove herself the representative of the ancient British monarchs by descent from a son of Edmund Ironside." The commissioners, at least such of them as could be induced to act, be ing four-and-thirty in number, arrived at Fotheringhay Castle on the 11th of October, accompanied by Edward Barker, the Queen's notary. Sir Amyas Paulet being added to the number of those empowered to pass judgment on the defenceless captive. He would have been more properly employed as a witness, if any regard had been paid to the forms of justice; but that would have given the accused power to question him, an inconvenience that was foreseen and cleverly avoided. Mary was confined to her bed by indisposition when the Commissioners arrived ; but Sir Amyas Paulet introduced ' Chateauneuf — Egerton, pp. 4, 5. Murdin's State Papers. ^ Through the marriage of Malcolm Canmore with Margaret Atheling, from whom she descended in the male line by a son of that marriage, whereas Elizabeth only descended from a daughter, Matilda of Scotland. I MARY STUART. 425 Sir Walter Mildraaj, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Barker the Notary, into her bedchamber, to deliver Queen Elizabeth's letter, which, in brief and imperious terms, announced the business on which the Commissioners had come, and required her to answer them. Marj, having read the letter, with dignified composure observed : " I am sorry the Queen my sister is so ill- informed of me. I have many enemies about her Majesty's person ; witness the long captivity in which I have been suflFered to languish, till I have nearly lost the use of my limbs. Many other injuries I might mention, such as the league entered into with my son without my consent, while all my good offers have been neglected and treated with contempt. The act that has lately been passed has warned me that I was to be made accountable for whatever attempts were made against the Queen my sister, whether by foreign princes, her own disaffected subjects, or for matters of reli- gion. As to the accusation to which I am now required to answer, her Majesty's letter is written after a strange fashion, and, as it seems to me, in manner of command." ^ The faded cheek of the poor invalid flushed with unwonted crimson, as with a burst of royal spirit she proudly added : " Does not your mistress know that I am a Queen by birth ? Or thinks she that I will so far prejudice my rank and state, the blood whereof I am descended, the son who is to succeed- me, and the majesty of other princes, as to yield obedience to her commands ? My mind is not yet so far dejected, neither will sink or faint under this mine adversity. I refer her to my former protest before Bromley, now Lord Chancellor, and my Lord de la Ware. The laws and statutes of Eng- land are to me unknown. I am destitute of counsellors, and who shall be my peers I cannot tell. My papers and notes are taken from me, and no man dareth speak in my justifi- cation, though I be innocent. I am clear from any practice to the hurt of your Queen. Let her convict me of the same by ray words or my writings ; but sure I am neither can be produced against me. Albeit I cannot deny that when she 1 Camden's Annals, Tytler. State-Paper MS. \ 426 MARY STUART. hath rejected every offer I made, I have commended myself and cause to foreign princes." ^ The next day Paulet and Barker returned to her from the Commissioners, to ask her, " whether she intended to adhere to the answer she had made, of which Barker had taken notes, and had now put it into writing?" She re- quired him to read it over distinctly to her, and then said : " I acknowledge it to be truly taken, and will abide by it ; but I request you to add that the Queen, my sister, writes ' that I am subject to the laws of England, because I have ' lived under the protection of them to which I answer, that I came into England to crave her aid, and have ever since been detained in prison, so that I have not enjoyed either protection or benefit from these laws, nor have I ever understood from any man what manner of laws thev were. " ^ In the afternoon, a deputation from the Commissioners, including the Lord Chancellor, Burleigh, Hatton, and the principal law-officers, demanded a conference with her. Lingard says this conference took place in the hall; but this is a mistake, for Mary stood so firmly on her dignity as a crowned head, that she would not condescend to meet them, but received them, which it was impossible for her to avoid, in her chamber. Burleigh and the Lord Chan- ^ cellor assured her that " her prerogative as a sovereign availed her nothing in that realm," and advised her to hear what was objected against her, threatening " that if she re- ; fused to appear, they would, could, and should proceed against her in her absence." Undismayed by this menace, Mary replied: "I would rather die a thousand deaths than acknowledge myself sub- ject to the authority of the Queen of England in any way, to the prejudice of regal majesty. Nevertheless, I am willing to answer all things that may be objected against me before a free and full Parliament. As for this assembly, it mav be, for aught I know, devised against me, to give some colour of a just and legal proceeding, though I be already ' > State-Paper MS.— The Scottish Queen's First Answers, Oct. 12, 1586. 2 Camden, from Barker's Registered Notes of the Proceedings. MARY STUART. 427 forejudged, and condemned to die, yet I adjure ye to look to your consciences in this matter, for remember the theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England." ^ Then she began to complain of the injuries she had sustained. Burleigh inten'upted her by enlarging on Queen Elizabeth's kindnesses to her, of which, she appearing to make little account, they returned to report her perversity to their fel- low Commissioners. All the diplomatic and legal talent in England was united against this one defenceless woman. They allowed her little time for rest or consideration, for, in the course of a few hours, Sir Amy as Paulet and the solicitor Egerton, were deputed to show her their commission, and the names of the Commissioners. She made no exceptions, but objected to the newly-made statute on which their commission was grounded, as " devised purposely for her destruction, and therefore unjust, without precedent, and one to which she would never submit." She observed " that it was plain, by the terms of the commission, that she was prejudged as guilty of the crime, therefore it was useless for her to appear." They urged her to state her objections in writing, but she scornfully replied, " that she was deprived of her secretaries, and had no one to make notes for her, and it suited not her royal dignity to play the scrivener." ^ This being repeated to the Commissioners, they, after some consultation, sent the deputation to her again. Weary and exhausted though she must have been with the former exciting and vexatious conference, Mary betrayed neither the languor of an invalid, nor the impatience of a sorely harassed woman. She told them " there was a passage in their Sovereign's letter which puzzled her, by stating ' that she was living in England under their Queen's protection,' and as she could not comprehend it, she requested the Lord Chancellor to explain it." As this was a difficult question to answer, the great law-officer evaded it by replying, " that the meaning was plain enough, but it was not for subjects to interpret the letters of their sovereigns, neither had they ^ Camden, from Bai'ker's Registered Notes of the Proceedings. ' Ibid.— State Trials. 428 MARY STUART. come there for that purpose, but to try the cause/' ^ Then she asked them by what authority they could proceed ? " By the authority of our commission, and the common law of England," was the reply. But said she, " You make laws at your pleasure, whereunto I have no reason to submit my- self; and if you proceed by the common law of England, you must produce precedents of like cases, forasmuch as that law dependeth much on cases and custom " ^ — a re- mark which proved Mary Stuart was not, as she professed herself, ignorant of the jurisprudence of the English con- stitution. The civilians, finding themselves baffled by the keen rejoinders of the lonely captive in her sick-chamber, told her " she was wandering into vain digressions," and de- manded "whether she would appear to answer?" alluding to their commission. " Your commission/' repeated Mary, " is founded on a recent law, framed expressly for my de- struction, and my heart is still too full of courage to dero- gate from the Kingsof Scotland, my progenitors, by owning the authority of the Crown of England." ^ Mary's courageous declaration, that she would not sub- mit to the authority of the Commission, having been re- ported to Elizabeth by a post-haste messenger on the pre- ceding day, the following imperious letter, without super- scription or regal address, was delivered to her, from that Princess, before her last conference with the Commissioners. " You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life, and bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded harshly against you ; but, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you, and all made manifest. Yet it is my will that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom, as if I myself were present. I therefore require, charge, and command that you make answer, for I have been well informed of your arrogance. Act candidly, and you wUl receive the greater favour of me." * If Elizabeth thought to vanquish the lofty spirit of her royal prisoner by intimidation, she was the more mistaken. It was treated with the contempt it merited. The security of the position Mary had assumed, in refusing to acknow- ledge the authority of the Commission, had been proved 1 Camden— state Trials. ^ Ibid. ^ Ibid. * Life of Egerton. MAEY STUART. 429 when Bromley, De la Ware, and other Commissioners, were sent to her on a similar errand in June 1572, sixteen years before, when a requisition had been made for her blood by a slavish Parliament, and a warrant for her execution had actually passed the Great Seal ; yet it had not been judged prudent to act upon it, although the recentness of the Northern Rebellion might have better excused such a measure than her alleged complicity in the wild plot of the brain-sick visionary, Babington, and his crazy associates. Outraged, calumniated, and deceived as Mary had been, it is doubtful whether she would have been considered worthy of death, even if, impelled by the desire of liberty and the strong instincts of self-preservation, she had con- sented to the designs of the conspirators against the life of her relentless persecutor. But it is a strong presumption of her innocence that she was induced by Hatton's artful appeal to her conscious integrity to deviate from the safe position she had at first taken. " If you are innocent/' said he, " you have nothing to fear ; but by avoiding a trial, you stain your reputation with an eternal blot." ^ Mary, thus adjured, acted as she had previously done with respect to the conferences at York, sacrificed the privileges of the Sovereign to her desire of clearing her character from the evil imputations of her foes. It was therefore neither inti- midation produced by the menacing tone in which Elizabeth commenced her letter, nor the deceitful promise of favour insinuated in the conclusion, that influenced Mary Stuart to appear in the hall of Fotheringhay to answer the Commis- sioners, but a point of honour. It is doubtful, however, whether her life would have been preserved if she had per- sisted in her refusal ; but her foes might have been reduced to the expedient of a private assassination, which Mary dreaded more than the block, lest the crime of suicide should be imputed to her. Early the next morning, October 14th, Mary signified her intention of appearing before the Commissioners, The great hall was accordingly prepared for that purpose with 1 Camden, from Barker's Registered Notes of the Proceedings of the Commissioners. 430 MARY STUART. a dais, canopy, and chair of state, surmounted with the arms of England, after the manner of a throne, to indicate the place, authority, and superiority of Queen Elizabeth. Di- rectly opposite, at the foot of the table, a chair, covered with crimson velvet, and a fair footcloth, were set for Queen Mary. The great law-officers of the Crown, with clerks, were seated round the table. The Lord Chancellor, Brom- ley, and Lord Burleigh with other peers, occupied stools and benches. Privy Councillors and Judges occupied seats according to their degree.-^ At the early hour of nine in the morning Mary entered the hall, passing through a double file of halberdiers, who formed a lane all the way from her chamber-door. She was dressed in a black velvet robe, with a long white lawn veil thrown over her pointed widow's cap, and descending to the ground. Her train was borne by one of her ladies, and she was followed by three others, one of whom carried a cushion for her feet. Her personal debility and unfitness to have left her chamber were silently testified by the diffi- culty with which she walked, leaning for support on the arm of her physician Burgoigne, and assisted on the other side by Sir Andrew Melville, her faithful Master of the Household, who, between them, aided her feeble steps, and conducted her to the chair that had been provided for her. Mary paused in indignant surprise. "I am a Queen by birth, and have been the consort of a King of France," she proudly observed. " My place should be there," ^ glancing at the vacant seat beneath the canopy. Having thus as- serted her claims to the honours of regality, and marked the breach of etiquette of which her foes had been guilty, the transient flash of anger subsided. Seating herself with great dignity, she bowed to the hostile conclave with the like majestic and gracious demeanour, as if greeting the Three Estates of Scotland, assembled at her bidding in her own Parliament-hall at Edinburgh or Stirling. Her composure and self-possession astonished the English nobles and civi- lians ; but under that calm queenly bearing she felt her * Howell's State Trials. Ellis, 2d Series, vol. iii. Tytler, vol. viii. « Cotton MS. Caligula. MAEY STUAET. 431 loneliness, and their want of manly sympathy for her for- lorn condition ; for, turning to Sir Andrew Melville, she mournfully observed, " Alas ! how many learned counsellors f are here, and yet not one for me ! " ^ How deeply must this have been felt by the just and generous princess who had, during her personal reign, bene- volently instituted the office of a Queen's Advocate for the poor, expressly to defend the causes of persons unable to obtain legal assistance under oppression. Mary Stuart now belonged herself to the class of the desolate and oppressed ; yet supported only by the consciousness of innocence, she had left the sanctuary of a sick chamber, when unable to move without assistance, and faced that formidable array of practised lawyers and crafty politicians, without counsel, bereft of the papers necessary to prepare her defence, and the assistance of a secretary to take notes for ^ her. The Lord Chancellor opened the proceedings by declaring to the royal prisoner, " that the Queen's Majesty-had at last determined to bring her to trial for conspiring the destruc- tion of her (Elizabeth's) person, that of the realm of Eng- land, and the subversion of religion/' He was followed by Burleigh, who desired her to hear the Commission. After this had been read by the Lord Chancellor, Mary rose and said : " I came to England to crave the aid that had been promised me, and it is well known that, contrary to all law and justice, I have been detained in prison ever since. As to your Commission, I protest against it. I am a free sove- reign Princess, subject to no one but God, to whom alone I am accountable for my actions. I do not consider any of you, here assembled, to be either my peers or ray judges to interrogate me on any of my doings, as I have told you before ; and I now tell you that it is of my own voluntary ^ pleasure I appear in person to answer you, by taking God to witness that I am innocent, clear, and pure in conscience from the calumnious charges with which I am accused. I call on my servants, here present, to bear record of this my ' Tytler. State Trials. Chateauueuf 's Report to the King of France — Teulet's Collections, vol. ii. 432 MAEY STUART. P protestation, lest my appearance before these Commissioners should hereafter be held derogatory either to my own royal dignity, that of my son, or any other persons of my degree." ^ She then repeated the objections against the statute on which < the Commission was founded, which she had previously stated to the deputation from the Commissioners in her own chamber. Serjeant Gawdy, in behalf of the Crown, entered into the details of the plot, with sundry arguments to demonstrate her complicity in the conspiracy against his Sovereign's life, pressing with technical skill every point that could be con- strued into evidence against her. Mary answered with a stout courage : " I know not Bab- ington ; I have never held conference with him, written to him, nor received letters, of that kind, from him ; nor have I ever plotted, or entered into plots for the destruction of your Queen. How could I do so, strictly guarded, and held in close prison, as I have been ? Cut off from all intercourse ^ and intelligence with my friends, environed with enemies, and deprived of counsel and assistance, how was it possible for me to participate in any practices to the injury of the Queen of England ?"2 Then it was urged, out of Babington's confession, that there had been intercourse of letters between her and him. She replied: "I do not deny that many persons have written to me, or that I have received letters from some who were unknown to me ; but to prove that I have con- sented to any wicked designs, it will be necessary to pro- duce my own handwriting." On copies of Babington's letters being read, she said : " It may be that Babington wrote those letters ; but let it be proved that I received them. If Babington, or any other, affirm it, I protest in plain words it is false.'' Abstracts from v Babington's confession were then read, touching certain let- ters alleged to have been written to him by her in reply to those she denied having seen. She listened attentively, and < when the passage was recited in which Babington was directed " to apply for advice and aid to the Earl of Arundel and his 1 Camden. Chateaiineuf, in Teulet's Collections, vol. ii. 508. Cotton. MS. Calig. C. ix. f. 333. 2 Ibid. MAEY STUART. 433 brothers," perceiving their destruction was intended, as well as hers, tears gushed from her eyes, and, unable to restrain her feelings, she pathetically exclaimed, " Woe is me, that the noble house of Howard should suffer so much for my sake ! ^ After a passionate burst of weeping had relieved the overcharged heart of the tender sympathising woman, she resumed the self-possession of the royal heroine, and asked the Commissioners whether they " thought it probable that she should direct application for assistance to be made to the Earl of Arundel, then a close prisoner in the Tower? or to the Earl of Northumberland, who was also named, seeing he was so young, and a stranger to her? Besides," added she, " if Babington confessed such things, why was he put to death, instead of being brought face to face with me as witness of the same, that so I might have been convicted by his testimony, if so be I were guilty of what is laid to my charge ? " Then she appealed to the statute enacted in the 15th year of Queen Elizabeth, which expressly provides " that no one should be arraigned for intending the destruction of the Sovereign's life but by the testimony and oath of two lawful witnesses, brought face to face before him." ^ The Crown lawyers replied that " they had her letters in evidence of her complicity." Mary desired to see them, and they produced Phillipps's decipherments. " Nay, bring me," said she, " mine own hand-writ ; anything to suit a pur- pose may be put in what be called copies. Also, it is an easy matter to counterfeit ciphers and characters, if others have got the alphabet used for such correspondence, as a young man did very lately in France, who gave himself out to be my son's base brother." ^ Then she pointedly alluded ^ Camden's Annals. Martin's Chronicle. Tytler. Howard Memorials. * Mary might also have quoted a statute of the 5th of Edward VI., which ordained the confrontation of the witnesses with the accused, and to the 1st of Mary I., which enjoined " that even in cases where the Sovereign was a party, the accused should be allowed all necessary assistance for making a defence," — Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 352. ' Meaning an illegitimate son of Darnley. Mary mentions this im- postor with great uneasiness in her letters to the Archbishop of Glasgow. VOL. VII. 2 E 434 MARY STUART. to Walsingham's practices for the purpose of her destruction and that of her son.^ Finding himself openly taxed, Walsingham rose, in some agitation, and protested " that, as a private person, he had done nothing unbecoming an honest man; nor, in his public capacity, unworthy of his place — though, out of his great care for the safety of the Queen, he had been curious to sift out all plots and designs against the same." Mary courte- ously replied, that she was satisfied with his answer, apolo- gised for having spoken so freely on what had been reported, and prayed him not to give more credit to those who slan- dered her, than she did to those who accused him. " Spies," observed she, " are men of doubtful credit, who make a show of one thing, and speak another, therefore I beseech you not to believe that I have ever consented to the Queen my sister's destruction. I would not," continued she, with tear- ful earnestness, " make shipwreck of my soul, by conspiring her destruction."^ The lawyers coolly told her, " this should soon be proved by witnesses," and then adjourned to their dinner, it being then past noon. After this necessary interval for rest and refreshment, Mary met the Commissioners in the hall again, anxious, of course, to see what witnesses they would bring forward. But they had nothing to produce against her but letters ; that to Babington, containing her implied approval of the design against Elizabeth's life, a mere decipherment from the ready pen of Walsingham's clerk Phillipps, " who," as she sarcastically observed, " never deciphered any good for her." They triumphantly produced the attestations her secretaries Nau and Curie had been compelled to write on the copy of her alleged letter to Babington, of July 17th, stating " that it was the same letter sent from her to him, or like it.'"' Yet, how could the copy of Phillipps's decipher- ment be either the same or like the original cipher ? Mary observed, " that, to the best of her belief, both Nau and Curie were honest men, but fear of death, or force of torture, might have induced them to write these attestations." They had separately, on examination, deponed " that the ' Camden. 2 3 LabanofF. MARY STUART. 435 Queen, their mistress, wrote the minutes in French, of her ciphered letters, and gave them to Curie, by whom they were translated into English, after which they were put into cipher by Nau. There should, therefore, have been three separate documents to verify each letter — her French minutes, Curie's translation, and Nau's cipher. Not one of these were pro- duced, nor has ever been seen. On what evidence was Mary, then, convicted of the crime for which she was brought to the block? On PhilHpps's copy of the cipher? Nay, but on his version of the decipherment, which there was nothing to check. He was not even confronted with Mary, whose questions, deeply versed as she was in the mysteries of ciphering, might, and probably would, have confuted him, and exposed the deception. Mary demanded that her secretaries might be confronted with her ; but as Elizabeth, in anticipation of this demand, had written to Burleigh " that she considered it unnecessary," the premier did not act in opposition to the opinion of his Sovereign, and Mary was told " that their oaths were all-sufficient to convict her.'' ^ " I do not believe,"' replied Mary, " that they have thus sworn ; but if, from fear, or hope of reward, they have done so, then are they perjured men, and their testimony worthless, because in violation of their previous oaths of fidelity to me. What," added she, " becomes of the majesty of princes, if the oaths or attestations of their secretaries are to be taken against their solemn protestations? ' I am held in chains. I have no counsel. You have deprived me of my papers, and all means of preparing my defence, which must, therefore, be confined to a solemn denial of the crime imputed to me ; and I protest on the sacred honour of a Queen, that I am innocent of practising against your Sovereign's life. I do' not, indeed, deny," continued she, weeping, " that I have longed for liberty, and ear- nestly laboured to procure it. Nature impelled me to do so ; but I call God to witness that I have never conspired the death of the Queen of England. I have written to my friends, and solicited them to assist me to escape from her miserable prisons, in which she has kept me now nearly ' Camden. Howell's State Trials. 43G MAEY STUART. nineteen years, till my health and hopes have been cruelly destroyed ; but I never wrote the letters you pretend, nor would I have done so to purchase a crown. I cannot answer, indeed, that my secretaries may not have received and answered such letters ; but if so, it was unknown to me, and I claim the privilege of being convicted on the evidence of my own writing alone, or words proved by lawful wit- nesses ; but sure I am nothing of the kind can be produced against me." " It is impossible," observes that eloquent historian and eminent legalist, Sir James Mackintosh, " to read without admiration, in the minute records of the trial, the self-pos- sessed, prompt, clear, and sagacious replies by which this forlorn woman defended herself against the most expert lawyers and politicians of the age, who, instead of examining her as judges, pressed her with the unscrupulous ingenuity of enemies." When Mary repeated that she knew neither Babington, Ballard, nor any other of the conspirators whom she was accused of sanctioning in their designs against Queen Eliza- beth's life, Burleigh interrupted her by saying, " I will tell you whom you do know, madam — you know Morgan, who employed Parry to murder the Queen, and you allow him a pension/' " Whether Morgan have done as you affirm, I know not," rejoined Mary; " neither am I bound to revenge otfences done to the Queen of England, albeit I have always discouraged such attempts ; but I know him for a faithful servant to me, who hath lost everything for my sake ; there- fore am I in honour bound to relieve him. And surelv pensions have been allowed by your Queen to my rebel subjects, enemies both to myself and my son."^ To this the premier made an evasive reply, lauding the noble bounty of his Sovereign to Mary's son. The proceedings were then adjourned till the following day. On the morrow, Mary again appeared before the Com- missioners, whose hostility she had fully proved by the manner in which Burleigh and the Lord Chancellor had endeavoured to browbeat her in her defenceless position ^ Camden. Tytler. Ellis. MAEY STUART. 437 and bodily debility. She came, as on the preceding day, supported between her physician and the Master of her Household, and followed by four of her faithful ladies. " Her cheek was pale, but resolved and bigh Were the words of her lip, and the glance of her eye." She began by renewing her protestation that " she, as an independent Sovereign, admitted neither the superiority of the Queen of England, nor the authority of their Commis- sion, but came into that hall voluntarily, out of regard to her own honour, to vindicate herself from the horrible im- putation that had been laid to her charge which protesta- tion she desired to be registered, and a copy of it delivered to her. This the Lord Chancellor told her should be done. " Accusations," she went on to observe, " were often the work of enemies, and spies unworthy of credit, as the Queen of England herself had formerly proved, when accused of participation in Wyat's plot, though perfectly innocent. My innocence," continued Mary, " is well known to God. My crimes consist in my birth, the injuries that have been inflicted on me, and my religion. Of the first I am justly proud, the second I can forgive, and the third has been my sole consolation and hope under all my afflictions, and for its advancement I would cheerfully give my best blood, if so be I might, by my own death, procure relief for the suffering Catholics ; but not even for their sakes would I purchase it at the price of the blood of others, having always been tender of the lives of the meanest of God's creatures. It is, in sooth, more in accordance with my nature to pray with Esther than to play the part of Judith. I know," she bitterly added, " you call me irreligious. There was, indeed, a time when I would willingly have been instructed in the Protestant creed, but that was not permitted, my soul being regarded of no value." ^ Then the tears burst forth again, and, overcome by the excitement and fatigue she had gone through during the last three days and anxious nights, sobs choked her voice when she struggled to pro- ceed, and her words became inarticulate. 1 Camden. Howell's State Trials. Ellis. Tytler. Keralio. Strangwayes. 438 MAEY STUART. The Court proceeded to charge her with the second part of the indictment, her correspondence with Mendoza and others to procure the invasion of the realm, and her offer to make over the kingdom of England to the King of Spain; < Marj dried her tears while portions of her letters to Men- doza, Charles Paget, Morgan, and Inglefield were read, rallied her spirit, and replied with a stout courage — " I do not deny having written to these persons ; but I say that my letters have been unfairly garbled, and perverted to meanings which they did not originally bear ; and as my , papers have been taken from me, I am deprived of the power of proving what was really written." She meant by produc- ing her minutes and Curie's translations. " The King of Spain, I know, pretendeth a title to the crown of England, which he will postpone to no other but mine. I have no kingdom to bestow ; yet with what is mine own I may do as I will, and am accountable to no one." Then the Solici- ' tor-General asked the Commissioners, " what they thought would become of their lands, honours, and posterity, if the kingdom were so conveyed ? " Mary declared " she had not sought foreign aid till she had been cruelly mocked by deceptive treaties, all her amicable offers slighted, and her health destroyed by her rigorous imprisonment." "When the last treaty was holden concerning your liberty," interrupted Burleigh, " Parry was sent privately by Morgan, a dependent of yours, to murder the Queen." " My lord," retorted Mary, " you are my enemy." " Yea," replied he, " I am the enemy of all Queen Elizabeth's adversaries." Mary demanded that she might have an advocate to plead her cause, and that another day might be allowed her for consideration and preparation of her defence, which being refused, Burleigh told her he would proceed to proofs. She contemptuously refused to listen to anything further. " But we," said Burleigh, turn- ing to the Commissioners, " will hear them." " I also," observed Mary, " will hear them in another place, and de- fend myself ; for it were extreme folly to stand to their ' judgment whom I perceive to be so evidently and notori- ously prejudiced against me." Then rising from her seat MAEY STUART. 439 she demanded to be heard in a full Parliament in presence of the Queen of England and her Council/ This coura- geous appeal to the representatives of a generous nation disconcerted the packed committee of courtiers, placemen, and lawyers, who had been deputed to hunt the defence- less captive to death in her prison. Proceedings termi- nated abruptly, and the Court broke up at one o'clock. Mary conversed some little time with Burleigh, Wal- singham, Warwick, and Hatton, apart from the rest of the Commissioners. The subject of their discourse never trans- pired. Twenty years previously Mary had entertained Hatton in her royal halls of Stirling during the baptismal fetes of the Prince, her son. He had seen her then in her royal splendour and the perfection of her charms, surrounded with pomp and pageantry, the centre of admiring eyes, the idol of her people, and, as the proud mother of a fair young son, an object of envy and jealous alarm to his all-powerful Sovereign. He saw her next in her sick chamber at Fotheringhay Castle, stripped of all the attributes of royalty save that innate dignity of which no reverse of fortune ever deprived Mary Stuart — the broken-hearted vic- tim of the cruel policy that had reversed all these transi- tory glories and plunged her into the depths of misery, when long years of incarceration in noxious prisons had added bodily sufferings to sorrow, faded her cheek, blanched her hair, and crippled her graceful form. He saw her also, after he had beguiled her into their toils, stand at bay in her lonely majesty, while beset by six-and-thirty pitiless assail- ants, calling themselves her judges, defending herself intre- pidly for two days against all their subtlety and malice, and finally driving them to the dastardly recourse of a Star-Chamber process for her destruction. Elizabeth, while violating the constitution of the land she governed by the disgraceful exercise of Privy Council des- potism against a royal stranger who had sought refuge in her realm, boasted insultingly to her slavish Parliament that " the 1 Camden, from Barker— Stote Trials, and Wheeler's Register of the Proceedings. 440 MARY STUAET. Queen of Scots, if proceeded with according to the law, must have holden up her hand at the bar of Stafford before a jury of twelve men."i To have done so would have given the unfortunate prisoner the best chance for her life, since it would not have been easy to cajole an honest English jurj to pronounce a verdict of guilty against an undefended woman on the suspicious evidence of the alleged copies of unproduced letters, the oaths of imprisoned witnesses, who were not suffered to appear in court, and the confessions of men who had been hanged. Mary never shrank from the test of an open investigation of her conduct; but neither in Scotland nor England was she allowed the privi- lege of being confronted with her accusers before a Parlia- ment or a public assize. She was the victim of select com- mittees of interested persons convened by her enemies. One of the most revolting features of the Fotheringhay proceedings was the unfeeling levity that characterised the principal actors in the tragedy. Davison was instructed by Elizabeth to write to Burleigh " how greatly she longed to hear how her Spirit and her Moon"^ (pet names for him and Walsingham) " do find themselves after their long and wearisome journey ;" while the aged Burleigh facetiously nicknames the distressed royal prisoner whom he had been oppressing, "the Queen of the Castle," and boasts "of so encountering her with his reason and experience in such sort as she had not that advantage she looked for, and that the auditory did not find her case pitiable." Yet he admits " that very great and long debate ensued upon it, which was renewed next day with great stomaching ; " ^ also, " that there was cogent reason for proroguing what he calls their session till the 25th of the month." The Commissioners had brought the strong force of 2000 men with them to Eotheringhay, to overawe the countrv, and prevent any enterprises for the rescue of the royal victim. Elizabeth wrote to Burleigh " not to pronounce sentence 1 D'Ewes's Journals of Parliament. Camden. ^ See Life of Elizabeth, in Lives of the Queens of England, vol. iv. p. 510, Library Edition. ^ MS. Letter, Cotton. Library, Caligula, C. ix. f. 473, Burleigh to Davison, October 1, 1586. MARY STUART. 441 against the Scottish Queen till the Commissioners had reported their proceedings to herself."^ Soon after the departure of these righteous judges, Paulet wrote to Wal- singham " that he had had an interview with the Scottisli Queen, who had been indisposed, and was under medical treatment. He found her, however, very calm, and quite undismayed by the late occurrences. She even entered into conversation with him on the subject, and obtained all the information she could extract from him about the Commis- sioners, by asking what person sat in such a place, and who in another, till she had made herself mistress of the names and leading characteristics of the majority of those who appeared in the hall." She also demonstrated the re- tentive powers of her memory by her observations on their respective speeches, which she freely discussed. Mary con- tinued, as might be expected, very ill after the unwonted fatigue and exertions she had gone through. Happily she had now leisure and liberty to keep her bed, which she did for many days. Vague rumours that the unfortunate Queen of Scots was involved in some extraordinary peril reached France several days before the Commissioners arrived at Fotheringhay, and excited great solicitude among her friends. Her faith- ful attendant, Mary Seton, writing from her cloistered se- clusion in the Convent of Rheims to Courcelles, the new French Envoy, who was then in London on his way to Scotland, says, " I cannot conclude without telling you the extreme pain and anxiety I feel at the distressing news which has been reported here, that some new trouble has befallen the Queen my mistress. Time will not permit me ' to tell you more." ^ Courcelles was directed by his Sovereign, Henry III. of France, to hasten to Scotland, and urge the young King - to make some strong demonstration to the Queen of Eng- land in behalf of his royal mother, whose life was in the greatest danger. Such a version of Mary's conduct in I regard to the Babington plot and her intrigues with Spain ' Life of Davison, by Sir H, Nicolas. 2 State-Paper Office MS. unpublished, October 11, 1586. 442 MARY STUART. as was best calculated to exasperate her son against her, was sent to that Prince by Elizabeth, with an intimation " that she intended to proceed against her." ^ James asked his cousin, Francis, Earl of Bothwell, " what course he had ' better pursue?" " I think, my liege, if you suffer the pro- cess to go on," he bluntly replied, " you ought to be hanged yourself the day after." George Douglas, in more respect- ful but scarcely less energetic language, warned his royal master to "beware of the lying tales of some about him, who were the pensioned slaves of the Queen of England, and paid to create bad blood between them." " But," said James, to whom all his hapless mother's passionate letters and complaints of him to foreign ambassadors had been repeated, " has she not threatened that unless I conformed myself to her wishes, I should have nothing but the lord- ship of Darnley, which my father had before me ? Has she not laboured to deprive me of my crown, and set up a regent ? Is she not obstinate in maintaining the Popish religion?" " Ay," retorted Douglas, himself a firm but conscientious member of the Eeformed Church, " she ad- hereth to the faith in which she hath been brought up, as your Majesty doth to yours, and, looking to the conduct of your religious guides, thinketh it more meet that you should come over to her opinions than she to yours." This provoked a smile from the young King, and the rejoinder, " Truth it is I have been brought up amid a knavish crew, whose doctrine I could never approve ; but yet I know my religion to be the true one." ^ Mary had written in the preceding April to M. D'Esne- val, the French Ambassador to Scotland, entreating him " to inform her from time to time of the health and welfare of her son, towards whom, she said, her extreme affection as a mother had never failed, though his bad ministers had ren- dered him so forgetful of her suffering." She desired a whole-length portrait of her son, taken from the life, might be procured for her. D'Esneval replied " that he had given orders to a painter, the only one in Edinburgh, to exe- ' cute her commission, not indeed from life, but from an ex- • Courcelle's Negotiations, Bannatyne Club Edition, p. 11-13. « Ibid. MARY STUART. 443 cellent likeness lately painted of the young King, who appeared highly gratified by this mark of her affectionate regard/' ^ The Star-Chamber process took place, as appointed, on the 25th of October, but several of the Commissioners who had seen Mary Stuart at Fotheringhay, refused to attend — among others the Earl of Warwick — under pretence of sick- ness.^ The two Secretaries, Nau and Curie, were now brought forward in the absence of the royal prisoner, to affirm the truth of the depositions on which it was intended to bring her to the block. But Nau positively affirmed " that the principal heads of accusation against the Queen, his mistress, were false;" and in spite of the angry attempts of Walsinghara to intimidate him, declared " that the Com- missioners would have to answer to Almighty God, as well as all Christian kings, if they should, on such false charges, condemn a Sovereign Queen," and required that his protes- tation might be registered.^ This demand was not complied with ; and but for his own statement in vindication of his conduct, this important fact would never have been heard of beyond the closed doors of the unconstitutional tri- bunal, where the mother of our royal line of Sovereigns was illegally "done to death,"* by being pronounced " guilty of 1 D'Esneval's Despatches. 2 Camden. Martin's Chronicle. 3 " Nau's Apologie," addressed to James L, 1 606. * Walsingham's letter to Curie in reply to one pressing him " to perform his promise," has been considered an evidence that he had been tampered with by that minister to betray his royal mistress. Yet it is not so, for Walsingham upbraids him " with not having confessed anything that he was able to deny." — Cotton. MS., Calig. C. ix. Curie, on his deathbed, pro- tested, " that as he should answer before the tribunal of his Almighty Judge, he had never violated his fidelity to the late Queen his mistress, but main- tained her innocence both in her life and after her death, of all the calumnies and accusations of her enemies ;" Lingard. That Mary was induced to be- lieve her secretaries guilty, is no proof that they- were so, for she had no means of knowing the truth, and the fact that they were long detained in prison after her death, shows that they had not won favour from her mur- derers. If Nau could have been induced to testify anything against her, he would at least have been rewarded with the hand of his beloved Bess Pierrepont, and a place at Court ; but that young lady became after all the wife of Richard Stapletou, a Yorkshire Squire (Jacob's Peerage) ; and Nau returned to France, and married one of his own countrywomen. His collateral relatives, the noble family of Nau de Champlouis, in France, the descendants of his elder brother, Claud Nau, retain a strong traditional faith in his integrity. 444 MAEY STUART. compassing and imagining divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the Queen, contrary to the form of the statute specified in the Commission/' ^ Even before the Commissioners assembled at Fotheringhay, under pretence of trying the fore-doomed victim, Leicester wrote to his friend Walsingham, from a sickbed in Holland, an eager requisition for her blood, denouncing it " as hazardous to defer" what he terms " furtherance of justice on the Queen of Scots, either for a parliament or a great sessions," and urging him and his colleagues " to be stout and resolute in this speedy execution/' ^ Parliament was, however, more subservient to the murderous policy of the conspirators against Mary's life than Leicester could have calculated. Both houses approved the proceedings of the Commis- sioners, confirmed their sentence, and united in petitioning the Queen that immediate execution might be done on the defenceless captive.^ Puckering, their speaker, added a me- ' raorial in his own hand, of " Reasons to move her Majesty to consent to the execution of the sentence against Mary, late Queen of Scots " — reasons which nothing but the most furious fanaticism could have blinded a man, professing to be a Christian and the voice of the representatives of the English nation, to the turpitude of addressing to his Sove- reign, for the purpose of tempting her to shed the blood of her captive kinswoman. One only need be quoted, as a specimen of the blasphemous perversion of Scripture, em- ployed by Master Puckering to deter Elizabeth from exer- cising the prerogative of mercy : — " Lastly, God's vengeance against Saul for sparing Agag, against Ahab for sparing the life of Benhadad, is apparent, for they were both by the just judgment of God deprived of their kingdoms, for sparing those wicked princes whom God had delivered into their hands, of purpose to be slain to death by them, as by the ministers of his eternal and divine justice. How much these magistrates were commended that put to death these mischie- vous and wicked Queens, Jezebel and Athaliah ! " 4 With brutal jocularity he adds : " He that hath no arms cannot fight, he that hath no legs cannot run away, but he ^ Camden. Egerton. Statutes of the Realm. * Leycester Correspondence. Edited by J. Bruce, Esq., Camden Society. Leicester to "Walsingham, October 10, 1586. 3 Lords' Journals. D'Ewes's Journal of the House of Commons. * Ibid. MARY STUART. 445 that hath no head can do no harm." i Elizabeth in her reply observed, " that her life had been dangerously shot at, and the idea that a kinswoman, so nearly allied to her in blood as the Queen of Scots, should be the author of the crime, filled her with such sorrow, that she had absented herself from Parliament, rather than incur the pain of hear- ing the matter discussed." After some further parade of softness and sensibility, Elizabeth adroitly added : " I will now tell you a farther secret, though it be not usual with me to blab forth in other cases what I know. It is not long since these eyes of mine saw and read an oath wherein some bound themselves to kill me within a month.'' ^ This of course raised the excitement against Mary to a still higher pitch of fury. Two days afterwards Elizabeth sent messages to both houses, requesting them to enter into a fresh consi- deration of so mighty an affair, and endeavour to find out some expedient w^hereby the Queen of Scots' life might be spared, and her own security insured. They replied, " It was impossible and a sort of memorial or address was pre- sented to her Majesty by a committee of civihans, who had been deputed by the Commons to draw up " Reasons, to prove that it stood not only with justice, but with the Queen's honour and safety, to proceed to execution." Eliza- beth was there reminded, " that more rigorous imprisonment, with threats of inflicting the penalty of death on the Queen of Scots, in case of her attempting to escape, an expedient that had been suggested, in order to preserve her life, would be unavailing ; for she was told at Lochleven," pursues this disgraceful document, " there was no way with her but death, if she would not take her imprisonment quietly, and live without seeking her liberty, she notwithstanding ad- ventured herself with a young fellow very dishonourably in a boat."^ After such a version of that most touching inci- dent, the deliverance of Mary Stuart from her cruel impri- sonment in Lochleven Castle by little Willie Douglas, the brave orphan boy, whose feeble arm God had strengthened ^ Camden's Appendix to Queen Elizabeth's Life. ^ Camden. D'Ewes. 2 Camden's Appendix to Elizabeth's Life, in Kennet, vol. ii. p. 668. 446 MARY STUART. for the performance of an enterprise unmatched in the annals of chivalry, no farther proof need be cited of the malevolent spirit that inspired the petitioners for Mary Stuart's blood, i Elizabeth gave an evasive answer to the petitioners, imply- | ing that she had not yet made up her mind what she would • do, and prorogued her Parliament to avoid further impor- tunity.^ Mary meantime continued to keep her bed from bodily indisposition, growing feebler every day. Her keeper. Sir Amyas Paulet, who was also an invalid, expressed lively satisfaction on the 13th of November that his old friend Sir Drue Drury was now associated with him in his charge of keeping " this lady," as he now styled Mary, systemati- cally refusing to honour her with her royal title. For the purpose of urging her immediate execution, he emphatically adds, " the loss of a day may cause the loss of a kingdom." Queen Elizabeth imposed on her kinsman, Lord Buck- hurst, the ungracious task of announcing to her royal pri- soner " that she had been pronounced guilty of death by the Commissioners in the Star-Chamber, which sentence had been approved and confirmed by both houses of Parliament, and that they had united in petitioning for her immediate execution." This accomplished young nobleman, the author of Porrex and Ferrex, one of the earliest tragedies in the English language, though included in the Commission, had resolutely abstained from sanctioning the illegal proceedings against Mary, by appearing among the Commissioners, either at her mock trial in the hall at Fotheringhay, or in the Star- Chamber.'' It was probably as a punishment for his contu- macy on those occasions that he was selected for the perform- ance of this office, which, however repugnant to his feelings, afforded the noble poet an admirable opportunity of study- ing royal tragedy from life. He arrived at Fotheringhay Castle on the 19th of November, with Beale, the Clerk of the Council, who was associated with him in this mission. In obedience to his instructions. Lord Buckhurst made the painful announcement to the captive Queen in the presence 1 State-Paper Office MS. ^ Jacob's Peerage, vol. i. p. 413. MAEY STUART. 447 of sir Amyas Paulet and Drurj, having previously done all he could to spare her the suddennesss of the shock, by sending her a sympathising message, expressive of his regret at having been deputed by his Sovereign to bring her heavy tidings, nor did he presume to enter her apartments till she had herself signified that she was ready to receive him. He executed the distressing office that had been thrust upon him with manly tenderness, and sternly checked Beale, whose duty it was to read the official papers, for the rude- ness and incivility of his behaviour.^ Mary received their communication with unruffled calm- ness, " but protested against the authority of the Commission as illegal, and the sentence as unjust, being innocent of any practices against the life of their Queen." But they warned her " to prepare for death, as her life was incompatible with the security of the Eeformed Church ; " and told her " the Queen, their mistress, exhorted her to confess and repent of her sins and ingratitude for the great and signal favours and benefits of which she had been the recipient, botli before and after her arrival in England.'' ^ Precious balms were they for which Mary's gratitude was claimed, having been detained from her kingdom and her son, and indulged with nearly nineteen years of restraint from air and exercise, in damp noxious prisons, that had deprived her of the use of her limbs ! Mary has detailed the leading features of the conference with sarcastic bitterness, in a letter to her faithful servant, Archbishop Beton, dated Nov. 24, five days after the agi- tating scene she describes had taken place. " My physician and my other servants are still allowed to remain with me," writes she ; ^ " but I know not for how long, nor whether I shall have time to make my will, or the power to do so, ray money, papers, and valuables having been taken from me. I pray you to solicit the intervention of all Christian princes for their restitution ; for they are no longer mine, being appropriated by me to discharge my conscience of ' Jacob's Peerage, vol. i. p. 413. ^ Instructions to Lord Buckliurst and Beale, in Labanoff, vol. vii. Labanoff. 448 MAEY STUART. my obligations to my poor servants and my creditors. You will be surprised at this language, if you have not heard that Lord Buckhurst, Amyas Paulet, and one Drue Drury, knight, have announced to me ' that I have been condemned by the Parliament of this country to die.' They have ex- horted me, on the part of their Queen, ' to confess and acknowledge my offences against her/ saying, 'that, in order to incline me to patience and a godly death, as well as to disburthen my conscience, she would send me a bishop and a dean, and that the reason my death was required by her people, was because I was a competitor for her crown, as I had formerly shown by assuming the arras and title of this realm, and that she could have no security while I was living, for all the Catholics styled me their Sovereign, and her life had often been attempted in consequence ; secondly, that ' if I survived, her religion could not remain in secu- rity.' I thanked God and them for the honour they did me, in regarding me as an instrument for the re-estab- lishment of my religion in this isle, of which, however unworthy, I would undertake to be a zealous defender, and would cheerfully shed my blood in that cause. And if the people thought the welfare and repose of this isle would be . secured by taking away my life, I would freely give it in re- turn for the twenty years they had detained me in prison. As to their bishops, I would not communicate with them ; but if they would please to permit me to have a priest of my own faith, I would willingly accept one to administer the sacra- ment to me, preparatory to my departure from this world. ' It was a fine thing,' they said, ' for me to make myself out a saint and a martyr ; but I should be neither, as I was to die for plotting the murder and deposition of their Queen." I replied that ' I was not so presumptuous as to pretend to honours of saint and martyr ; but although they had power over my body, by the divine permission, they had none over my soul, nor could they prevent me from hoping that, by the mercy of the God who died for me, my blood and life would be accepted as offerings freely made by me for the maintenance of His church, apart from which I would not desire to purchase an earthly kingdom, by the loss of one MARY STUART, 449 eternal.' I besought Him to accept the sorrows and perse- cutions I had suffered both in mind and body as some atone- ment for my sins. But to have contrived, counselled, or ordained the death of their Queen, was what I had never done. ' Ho ! ' returned they, ' you have suffered, coun- selled, and permitted Englishmen to call you their sove- reign, as appears by the letters of Allen, of Lewis, and several others, without gainsaying it.' I replied that * I had not presumed to blame the learned doctors and digni- taries of the church, to which I owed obedience, for what they were pleased to call me, since it was not for me to question but submit to what that church decreed, even if, as they said, his Holiness made every one pray for me under that title, of which I was myself ignorant. I would willingly die for obeying the church, but would not murder any one to possess their rights. Their pursuit against me reminded me of Saul's against David, only I could not, like David, escape out of a window.' " The day before yesterday," continues Mary,^ " Paulet came again to me with Drury, who is much more modest and civil, to tell me ' that, since I had been admonished to confess and repent of my offences against their Queen, I had neither shown contrition nor any sense of my fault, so she had commanded him to take down my dais,^ to signify to me that I was a dead woman, deprived of the honours and dig- nity of a Queen.' I replied that ' God of His grace had called me to that dignity ; I had been duly anointed and sacred as such, and held it of Him alone, to whom alone I would resign it, together with my soul. I neither recognised their Queen for my superior, nor her heretical Council for my judges, and should die a Queen in spite of those whose power resembled that which robbers in the corner of a forest might exercise over the most righteous prince or judge in the world ; but I trusted that God would, after my death, manifest the integ- rity of my cause to this realm. The kings of this country had often been murdered, and it would not be at all won- derful for me to share the like fate, being of the same royal ^ Labanoff, vL 293. " The French call a canopy dais. VOL. VII. 2 F 450 MAEY STUAET. blood, King Eichard having been thus treated because of his lawful rights.' Paulet, finding that my faithful servants would not obej him, which they all stoutly refused to do, even the poor girls crying aloud for vengeance on him and his companions, he called seven or eight of his creatures, and having knocked down the dais, he seated himself, covered his head, and told me ' that as there was no longer any time or leisure for me to waste in idle recreations, he should take away my billiard-table.' I replied < that I had never used it since it had been there, for they had given me other occupations.' " The captive Queen adds : — " Yesterday I assembled my little train, that I might, when they were all together, make my protestation both in regard to my religion and to clear myself of the false calumnies that have been put upon me. Also I ' charged them all, in the presence of God, to give you an account of/ all my actions, and what has been done to me. I leave to the Princea of Lorraine and Guise, and my other relations, to do what will be requisite for the good of my soul, the discharge of my conscience, and the vmdication of my honour, and that of all belonging to me ; for she, the Queen of England, will try after my death to reproach not only me' but my cousin Guise, and all his relations, with practising by bribery to procure her murder. I said, which is the truth, that ' I knew nothing about it [the conspiracy for that purpose], neither do I believe it.' I recommend my poor servants to you, in the name of God. Console them of your cha- rity, for in losing me they lose everything. . . . Adieu ! for the last time ' Be mindful of the soul and the honour of her who has been your Queen mistress, and good friend." ^ ' The violent removal of Mary's dais occurred on Monday November 21, the same day Lord Buckhurst left the castle- and it was, possibly, in consequence of the serious represen- tations of that nobleman to Paulet of the impropriety of his conduct, and the probable displeasure of the Queen at the perpetration of such an outrage in her name, unauthorised by her, that he came the next day to explain to his royal charge " that he had done it without her Majesty's com- mand, at the suggestion of certain of the Council." " I showed him," writes Mary to the Duke of Guise, " in the place of my arms on the dais the cross of my Saviour." ^ The insatiable malice which prompted Mary Stuart's foes 1 State-Paper MS., dated Fotheringhay, this Thursday, 24th of Nov 1586 Labanoff. MARY STUART. 451 thus to distil the bitterness of death to her drop by drop, must have been disappointed by the undaunted courage with which she contemplated the near approach of the King of Terrors. " They are now/' writes she in her farewell letter to Don Bernard Mendoza, " at work in my hall erecting, I think, the scaffold, on which the last act of my tragedy is to be performed," To her cousin the Duke of Guise she writes a more tender and solemn farewell, telling him " that she is now, by an unjust sentence, about to be put to such a death as no person of their race, much less of her rank, ever suffered. Yet she praises God for it, being useless to the world and to the cause of His church in her present state. And though," continues she, " executioner never yet dipped his hand in our blood, be not ashamed thereof, my friend." She recommends her poor disconsolate servants to his care, and tells him it is her intention " that they shall be ocular witnesses of her last tragedy." She exhorts him " to have prayers made for the soul of his poor cousin, deprived of all counsel or aid save that of God, who had inspired her with strength and courage to combat singly against so many wolves who were howling round her ; " and bids him " give especial credit to a person who will bring him a ruby ring from her." The injurious treatment Mary Stuart had experienced both in Scotland and England from political foes, who masked their personal malice under the convenient pretext of zeal for the true evangile, had, unfortunately, the effect of exciting in her bosom prejudice against the religion they disgraced ; while, with the ardour invariably kindled in a high and generous spirit by persecution, she clung more fondly to her own in that dark hour, and expressed a proud satisfaction that she was victimised in its cause. Under the powerful influence of these feelings, her farewell letters to her friends and allies were written, especially that which she addressed to the Pope, professing " her attachment to the Eoman Catholic Church, and her desire for its re-estab- lishment in England. In testimony of which, and in pre- ference to the peculiar interests of her own flesh and blood," 1 Labanoff. m MARY STUAET. she desires to call the attention of his Holiness " to the un- happy state of her poor child," and begs " that prayers and all proper means may be used for his conversion ; but in case he prove obstinate in his errors, then she transfers •whatever rights she possesses in the realm of England to the King of Spain." ^ It is scarcely possible to say too much in condemnation of this declaration. It was a transfer Mary had no right to make, under any circumstance ; and it is painful to be com- pelled to record an act of bigotry and injustice which, in the eyes of all Protestants, leaves an indelible reproach on her memory. It is easy, however, to conceive that her enthu- siastic feelings worked her up to the performance of what she knew her own Church would regard as a meritorious duty, though involving the sacrifice of that proud maternal ambition which had taught her to exult in the prospective reign of her son over the united Britannic Empire. When the aspect of his royal mother's affairs assumed a serious appearance, James deputed Archibald Douglas, by the evil counsel of the Master of Gray, as his ambassador, to intercede with Elizabeth in her behalf. The appoint- ment was considered ominous to Mary, for it was shrewdly observed " that, as Archibald Douglas had been present at the murder of his Majesty's father, he was now going to have a hand in the death of his mother."' Douglas had just before got himself absolved, by a packed jury and deceptive trial, from the charge of Darnley's murder, on which his friend Randolph wrote a facetious letter to congratulate him, in terms which leave no doubt of the notoriety of his guilt. He endeavoured to lull James's fihal anxiety by per- suading him his mother was in no danger ; and at first, to a certain degree, succeeded, till correct information from authentic sources reached him, and roused the feelings of a son. " The case of the Queen my mother," observed James to Courcelles, " is the strangest that was ever heard of since the creation of the world. Have you ever read in history of a sovereign princess being detained so many years in prison ^JLabanoff. JVIARY STUART. m hj a neighbouring monarch, whom she sought as a jus- tifier?" Then he enlarged " on the noble manner In which he had been told his mother had defended herself before the Commissioners." He affirmed that " she displayed before the whole assembly the ring she had received from the Queen of England as a pledge of that amity which, by too lightly trusting, had entailed upon her nineteen years of miserable durance.^ She bore herself," continued he, " so bravely when environed by her foes, that many of them remained speechless, pondering on her words, and declared ' no orator ever spake more eloquently or better to the pur- pose/ The Queen of England had protested ' she would never shed her blood, but wished her safe in France ; ' and had assured his ambassador, Archibald Douglas, that no- thing should ever induce her to agree to Queen Mary's death, or to sign any instrument authorising it, though her Council and Parliament were urgent with her on the sub- ject, from their fears that Mary would proceed very rigorously against some of them if she survived her, and endeavour to change the established religion in England." James told Courcelles " that he had written a letter to his royal mother, with his own hand, and also to four or five of the leading men in the English Court, in her behalf, and especially to the Secretary Walsingham, who was the great cause of all her trouble, desiring him to desist from his ill offices against the Queen his mother, of which he was well informed ; and that if persisted in, he should be under the necessity of remembering and resent- ing his conduct hereafter." These letters he had sent by his trusty servant Sir William Keith, whom he had made the bearer of his earnest intercessions to the Queen of England, empowering him to offer any condition she could in reason demand for the preservation of the Queen his mother's life." 2 ^ The same incident is related also with great effect by Tytler, but is in- compatible with the fact that Mary declares, in more than one letter to Elizabeth, "that she sent this ring to her by John Beton on her escape from Lochleven, and claims the promise of assistance of which it was the pledge." 2 Courcelles to Henry III., November 30, 1586 — Cotton. Lib, Calig. C. ix., p. 443. 454 MARY STUAET. James's autograph letter to his representative at Eliza- beth's Court by Keith bears undeniable evidence of the sincerity of his intentions. " Reserve yourself up no longer in the earnest dealing for my mother, for ye have done it too long, and think not that any of your travails can do good if her life be taken, for then adieu with my dealing with them that are the special instruments thereof; and, therefore, if ye look for the continuance of my favour towards you, spare no pains nor plainness in this case." ^ The filial efforts of the young King to avert the slaughter of his unfortunate mother, and the manner in which they were traversed by his perfidious Ministers, are testified by the following remarkable passages in a letter from the Master of Gray to Archibald Douglas : — " The King's Majesty hath commanded me to write to you very earnestly to deal for his mother's life, and I see if it cannot be done by you, he minds to take the matter very highly, . . . This is a hard matter, to speak truly, for the King our Sovereign not to make any stir for his mother, and yet the matter is also hard on the other side for you and me, although we might do her good to do it, for I know, as God liveth, it shall be a staff for our own heads ; yet I write to you, as he hath commanded me, to deal very instantly for her; but if matters might stand well between the Queen's Majesty there [Elizabeth] and our Sovereign, I care not although she were out of the way." * The emphatic pronoun she, of course refers to Mary, against whom these brothers in iniquity were labour- ing. In another letter the Master of Gray, whom James now blindly commissioned to repair to the Court of Eng- land with fresh instances from him to Elizabeth in behalf of his royal mother, requests Archibald Douglas, pre- paratory to his undertaking the journey, " to show the Queen of England, and all their honourable friends there, that they shall always find him constant, and that in his negotiations he shall know nothing but for their content- ments." 2 He does not forget to communicate to his worthy coadjutor the public opinion in regard to his character and proceedings. " Your enemies never had so good subject to calumniate you as at this time, for their common saying to the King is, that ye will be both slayer of his father and mother." * 1 Robertson's Appendix. * Lodge, vol. ii. p. 289. s Lodge, vol. ii. p. 294. * Ibid., vol. ii. p. 295. MARY STUART. 455 Elizabeth received the letters addressed to her by James, and Keith's remonstrances in his royal master's name against the murder of his captive mother, with a transport of rage.^ His next envoys, the Master of Gray and Sir Robert Melville, apologised for the strong language that had been used, and Gray took the opportunity of privily whispering in her ear, " A dead woman bites not." ^ This decided the matter ; the eloquence and earnest efforts of Bellievre, the French Ambassador -Extraordinary from Henry III., to induce her to give up her sanguinary pur- pose against the life of her sister Sovereign, were un- availing. The pretended discovery of a new plot against Elizabeth's life, in which it was alleged that Chateauneuf and his secretary were implicated, was announced, in order to prevent further remonstrances or intercessions from the Court of France,^ and served as an excuse for pubhshing the sentence of death against Mary in London. This was done by the heralds with sound of trumpet on the 4th of December ; and as the public mind had been kept in a great state of excitement by industriously circulated reports of Popish plots and Spanish invasions for her deliverance, the fiat for her slaughter was received with great demon- strations of popular rejoicing. All the bells in London rang for four-and-twenty hours ; bonfires were kindled, and the streets resounded with acclamations.^ Unaware of the decisive step that had been taken by his Sovereign and her Ministers towards the consummation of his intense desire for Mary's blood, and impatient of what he termed " unseasonable delays," Paulet wrote to Walsing- ham expressing his fears " that Fotheringhay was for- gotten, although the lady under his charge had given all her Majesty's true and faithful subjects cause not to sleep soundly till the head and seed-plot of all practices and conspiracies were utterly extirpated." "He hoped," he said, " soon to hear of a happy resolution f but opportu- nities neglected often produced dangerous effects." Then, ^ Tytler. 2 Camden. ^ Ambassade de Chateauneuf— in Teulet, vol. ii. p. 833-63. * Camden. Chalmers. Bellifevre — in Teulet's Collections. ^ Notes to Chalmers's Life of Mary Queen of Scots. 456 MARY STUART. with unfeeling indifference, the amiable keeper mentions the personal sufferings of the poor victim to whom ho so bitterly grudged the delay of a few precarious weeks of life and misery. " The lady is ill in one of her knees, but that is no new thing." ^ No new thing ! Alas for Mary, no ! Every winter, since her first incarceration,^ in the damp dilapidated prison-lodgings she was doomed to occupy in Tutbury Castle, seated on its bleak hill, exposed to all the winds and malaria of ten miles of undrained fens, had seen her suffering from attacks of neuralgic or rheumatic gout, not the more tolerable from their peri- odical returns, till at last, from frequent recurrence, they had assumed a more aggravated character, and become constitutional. The day after the publication of Mary's sentence in London, a deputation, consisting of some of the leading members of the English Privy Council, Crown lawyers, and other officials, proceeded to Fotheringhay, and made a formal announcement of the fact to the royal captive. She listened without the slightest indication of surprise or discomposure, and intrepidly replied " that the sentence was illegal, founded on falsehoods and imaginations, in- vented against her, they having proceeded in like manner as the Scribes and Pharisees had done against her Lord.'" She concluded by repeating her former protests, " that she was a Sovereign Queen, neither subject nor amenable to the laws and statutes of this realm." ^ She was, however, treated in all respects as a condemned culprit, and with greater inhumanity than had ever been practised on the most atrocious of criminals : the chamber, and even the bed, of this unfortunate Princess were hung with black, to intimate to her and her afflicted servants that she was to be regarded henceforward as a dead woman.^ ^ Notes to Chalmers's Life of Mary Queen of Scots. ^ In February 1569. 3 Historical Memorial of the Transactions of M. de Bellievre relative to the affairs of the Queen of Scotland during November and December 1586.« — Bibliotheque du Roi. * Letter of BelliSvre and Chateauneuf, the French Ambassadors, to Henry IIL Lettres Originales d'Etat, Du Mesme's Collection — Bibliotheque du Roi. MARY STUART. 457 The melanclioly anniversary on which Mary Stuart com- pleted her forty-fourth year dawned on her under this sable canopy, surrounded by the lugubrious trappings which for two months represented to her living eyes the hearse in which her mangled form was to be laid bleeding from the headman's axe. Suspense and horrible uncertainty were added to her sufferings ; for though two long dreary wintry months were destined to be worn away in her dark passage through the valley of the shadow of death, she had not the certainty of one hour of life beyond the other. About the middle of December Sir Amyas Paulet came to inform Mary " that the Queen's Majesty had been graciously pleased to signify her intention of restoring the money and other effects that had been seized at Chart- ley, and also to permit her to see her almoner,''^ from whom she had been now separated four months. The royal prisoner took this for an intimation that she must prepare for immediate death, but suspected that she was to be cut off either by poison or some other private method of assassination. The only apprehension Mary appears to have felt was that either the crime of suicide would be charged on her, in order to remove the imputation of her murder from her foes, or that confessions of guilt she had never committed might be put forth in her name, after her death ; hence her desire that, if her blood were shed, it might be in public, in the presence of her faithful servants. Under the impression of these feelings, she wrote her last noble and eloquent letter to Elizabeth, to whom she had previously written in the same strain, but more briefly, in November, after the Star-Chamber sentence was announced to her by Lord Buckhurst ; but it is doubtful whether that letter had been permitted to reach the hands of the English Queen.2 That this was received and read there can be no doubt ; for Leicester writes to Walsingham — "There is a letter from the Scottish Queen that hath wrought tears ; but, I trust, ^ Letter of Mary to the Duke de Guise — LabanoflF. Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. viii. 2 Printed in Tytler, vol, viii. pp. 329, 330. » 458 MARY STUART. shall do no further herein ; but the delay is too danger- ous/' After stating "the difficulty she has had in procuring leave to write," and declaring her intention " of taking that opportunity for exonerating herself from the charge of having borne malice or cherished murderous intentions against any one so nearly allied to her in blood," Mary thus reveals the deep things of her heart : — ^ " I am resolved to strengthen myself in Christ Jesus alone, whose justice and consolation never fail those who, in their tribulation, invoke Him with a true heart, especially those who are bereft of all human aid, such being peculiarly under His divine protection. To Him be the glory ! He has not disappointed my expectation, having given me heart and strength, in spe contra spem — in hope against hope, to endure the unjust calumnies, accusa- tions, and condemnations of those who have no authority over me, with a firm determination to suffer death for the maintenance and weal of the Catholic Apostolic and Eoman Church. Now having been informed, on your part, of the sentence passed in the last Session of your Parliament, and admonished by Lord Buckhurst and Beale to prepare myself for the end of my long and weaiy pilgrimage, I prayed them to return my thanks to you for such agreeable intelligence, and to ask you to grant some things for the relief of my conscience. Since then the Sieur Paulet gives me to understand that you mean to gratify me by restoring my almoner,* and the money of which they deprived me, and that the rest would follow. . . . . . , I will not accuse any person, but sincerely pardon every one, as I desire others, and, above all, God, to pardon me. And since I know that your heart, more than that of any other, ought to be touched by the honour or dishonour of your own blood, and of a Queen, the daughter of a King, I require you. Madam, for the sake of Jesus, to whose name all persons bow, that after my enemies have satisfied their black thirst for my innocent blood, you will permit my poor disconsolate servants to remove my corpse, that it may be buried in holy ground, with my ancestors in France, especially the late Queen my mother, since in Scotland the remains of the Kings my predecessors have been outraged, and the churches torn down and profaned. As I shall sufier in this country, I shall not be allowed a place near your ancestors, who are also mine, and per- sons of my religion think much of being interred in consecrated earth. Since they assure me you will put no constraint on my conscience and reli- gion, and that you have even accorded me a priest, I trust you will not refuse this last request I have preferred to you, and allow, at least, free sepulture to this body when the soul shall be separated from it, which never could obtain, while united, liberty to dwell in peace. As to practis- ing any ill against you, I declare, in the presence of God, I am not guilty of that crime ; but God will let you see the truth of all plainly after my death. Dreading the secret tyranny of some of those to whom you have abandoned ' Du Mesme's MS. Collection of Original State Letters — Bibliothdque du Hoi. ^ This promise was never fulfilled. 4 MARY STUART. 459 me, I entreat you to prevent me from being despatched secretly, without your knowledge, not from fear of the pain, which I am ready to suffer, but on account of the reports they would circulate of my death, without less suspicious testimony than those who would be the doers of it. It is there- fore that I desire my servants to remain the witnesses and attestators of my end, my faith in my Saviour, and obedience to His Church, and that afterwards they may all, together, remove my body as secretly as you please, and as quickly as they can, without taking away either furniture or anything else, save those few trifling things which I leave them at my death, which are little enough in reward for their good services. One jewel that I received from you I shall return to you with my last words, or sooner if you please. I entreat you to permit me to send a jewel with my last advice to my son, and my last blessing, of which he has been deprived, since you sent me word of his refusal to enter into the treaty from which I was excluded by the wicked advice of his Council. This last point I refer to your favourable consideration and your conscience, the others I require of you in the name of Jesus Christ from respect to our consanguinity, for the sake of King Henry VII., your great-grandfather and mine, for the dignity we have both held, and for the sex to which we both belong." Mary adds a fervent wish that all the papers that had been seized might be submitted to Elizabeth without reserve — a test to which, if guilty, she would not have ventured to appeal. She concludes in these noble words : — " I beseech the God of mercy and justice to enlighten you with His holy Spirit, and to give me the grace to die in perfect charity, as I endeavour to do, pardoning my death to all those who have either caused or co-operated in it ; and this will be my prayer to the end. I esteem myself happy that my death will precede the persecution which I foresee menaces this Isle, where God is no longer truly feared and reverenced, but vanity and worldly policy rules and directs all. Accuse me not of presumption if, leaving this world and preparing myself for a better, I remind you that you will have one day to give account of your charge, in like manner as those who have preceded you in it, and that my blood and the misery of my country will be remembered ; wherefore, from the earliest dawn of our comprehension we ought to dispose our minds to make things temporal yield to those of eter- nity. From Fotheringhay this 19th of December 1586. " Your sister and cousin wrongfully a prisoner, "MARIE ROYNE." MARY STUART CHAPTEE LXII. SUMMARY Mary unconscious of her son's efforts to save her — Her keepers exhorted by Walsingham and Davison to put lier to death privately — Their indig- nant refusal — Harrison's confession of forging Queen Elizabeth's signature to the warrant for Mary's execution — Burleigh, Walsingham, and Davison despatch Beale with the warrant privily to Fotheringhay — Reports circu- lated of Mary's escape and Popish insurrections — Her forlorn condition at Fotheringhay Castle — Deprived of her faithful servant Andrew Mel- ville — Appearance of a meteor opposite her window — Mary threatened with attack of sickness — Arrival of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, with Beale, to execute the warrant — Mary receives them in her bedroom, in presence of her servants — Beale reads the warrant for her execution — Her intrepid demeanour — She demands time to make her will — They refuse — They offer her the assistance of the Bishop or the Dean of Peter- borough, to prepare her for death — She requests to have her Almoner — The Earl of Kent taunts her about her religion — Mary's proud rejoinders — Mary tries to console her servants — Invites them to pray with her — Her last supper, and tender admonitions to her servants — She divides her money, and remaining ornaments and clothes, among them — Her be- quests to absent friends — Description of a ring with Darnley's mono- gram and hers, found at Fotheringhay — Mary writes her will — Subject for devotional reading chosen by her — Her trust in the mercy and atoning blood of Christ — Her tranquil repose — Morning of her death — Her last toilette — Her solitary communion— Extempore Latin prayer in vei'se — Tries to comfort her afflicted servants — She kneels with them for the last time in prayer — Mary is summoned to the scaffold — Unable to walk without support — Her servants refuse to lead her to < death — Two of Sir Amyas Paulet's people appointed to assist her — Her servants separated forcibly from her — Her impassioned remonstrance to the two Earls — She is allowed to select two ladies and four men to attend her— Bids the others farewell— Their heart-rending grief— She MARY STUAET. descends the stairs — Pathetic scene between her and Andrew Melville — She sends her blessing to her son — Last act of the tragedy in the hall at Fotheringhay — Mary's heroic deportment — Her forgiveness and prayers for her foes — Eejects the ministry of the Dean of Peterborough— His persevering intrusion — Her devotions interrupted by the taunts of the Earl of Kent — She declares her reliance on the atoning blood of Christ — Blesses and bids her ladies farewell {subject of Vignette) — Sympathy of the spectators — Unskilfulness of the executioner — Her severed head exposed to the people — Her grey hair — Her ladies prevented from per- forming the last duties to her remains — Her faithful little dog — Descrip- tion of her last portrait at Blairs College {Frontispiece of this volume) — Elizabeth's reception of the tidings of Mary's death — Eeasons to be- lieve Harrison's confession of forging Elizabeth's signature to the death- warrant true — Her abject apologies to Mary's son — His stern reception of her excuses — Funeral sermon for Maiy at Notre Dame — Her long- delayed interment, and state funeral at Peterborough Cathedral — Eliza- beth chief mourner by proxy — Mary's servants refuse to accept mourn- ing from Queen Elizabeth — Their independent conduct and grief — What became of her faithful Scotch ladies and Andrew Melville — Exhumation of Queen Mary's remains — Her tomb at Westminster Abbey. Enclosed within the strong walls of her double-moated prison, and precluded from stirring beyond the narrow limits of her chamber, Mary found herself cut off from all intelligence, save what it pleased her keeper to communi- cate ; and as it never pleased him to tell her anything but evil, she had not the consolation of hearing of the per- severing efforts of her son to avert her doom ; nor that prayers and supplications, in which he publicly assisted himself, were made to Almighty God at this time, in all the churches in Scotland, for her deliverance from her present peril.l Several of the more chivalric nobles of Scotland, as Huntley, Atholl, Lord Claud Hamilton, young Herries, and George Douglas, urged their young Sovereign to make his remonstrances by crossing the English border at the head of an invading army.^ James knew, however, that this would only furnish an excuse for putting his help- less mother to death immediately. He was, besides, desti- tute of the means of making warlike demonstrations ; the Presbyterian party, including nearly two-thirds of his sub- jects, being opposed to provoking the hostility of the power- ful realm of England. ' Courcelles' Despatches. Tytler's History of Scotland. ^ 462 MAEY STUART. The fatal precedents of Malcolm Canraore, David Bruce, James IV. at Flodden, and the disaster of James V. at Solway Moss, were sufficient warnings of the folly of in- vasive warfare. Warned by the sad experience of his ancestors, the son of Mary Stuart attempted not to imitate their rash example, which his duty to his people forbade ; and those who censure his pacific policy would do well to acquaint themselves with the difficulties of his position, and to remember the kings of real life are not gifted with the fabulous powers of the heroes of fairy tales. It is a curious fact that Mary Stuart, among her other preparations for death, of which she was now in daily ex- pectation, was anxious to investigate her accounts, doubt- less from the conscientious motive of ascertaining and endeavouring to provide for the payment of her debts. " This lady," writes Sir Amyas Paulet to WalsiDgham, " findeth fault that her papers of account for this last year, which include all former years, are kept from her — as indeed I can say they are not sent, because I perused those which were sent before they were delivered, and the same may also appear by this copy enclosed of Nau's letter sent with the said papers. I have some books of account, found in Nau's chamber at the time of the search ; and doubting lest they might contain somewhat on these causes, I have, without this Queen's privity, perused them, and do find that they contain accounts of former years." ^ This testimony of the business-like habits of his royal prisoner, and his own zealous inquisition into her household books, in hopes of finding something to produce in evidence against her, is followed by an expression of annoyance that she was still permitted to draw the breath of life for a few more days of agonising suspense, during the pause created by Elizabeth's misgivings, and refusal to sign the warrant for her execution. " The delay," observes he, " is fearful ! God send it a good and happy issue." " This fanatical thirst for Mary's blood " — this malig- nant hatred, which no sufierings on the part of its hapless object but death could satisfy — tempted Walsingham, who felt they had all gone too far to recede, to write in conjunc- tion with Davison that memorable letter to Paulet and his 1 Fotheringhay, Jan. 2, 1586-87— State-Paper Office MS. unpublished. MARY STUART. 463 colleague— telling them " that her Majesty [Elizabeth] was much dissatisfied with both their lacking that care and zeal, in her service she looked for at their hands, in that thej had not of themselves (without other provocation) found out some waj to shorten the life of that Queen." Exhorta- tions to do this great wickedness, " for the preservation of religion, the public good and prosperity of their country, their own particular safeties, and the discharge of their consciences from what the oath of the association had bound them to, follow;"^ also an intimation that their Sovereign " took it most unkindly of them that they should, for lack of the discharge of their own duties, " cast the burden on her, knowing as they did her indisposition to shed blood, especially of one of that sex and quality, and so near to her in blood as the said Queen." 2 Davison's mind mis- gave him after this letter was despatched, and he sent a special messenger with a sort of postscript note to Sir Amyas Paulet urging him to commit it to the flames, and facetiously promises " to make a heretic of the answer." Little did he and Walsingham suspect that both would one day be published to testify to the whole world the black arts resorted to by them against their defenceless victim. The stern integrity of Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drue Drury in refusing to comply with this request in the name of their Sovereign, has been highly extolled ; but no • advantage had been offered to induce them to incur the risk of being rendered, like Gournaye and Maltravers, not only ' This oath of association has been supposed by all historians to refer to ( the Protestant Association for the protection of Elizabeth's life ; but it really means the writ of association by which Paulet and Drury were included among the Commissioners who sat in judgment on Mary at Fotheringhay, investing them with the power of passing sentence on her and ' seeing her executed. Now this was what Walsingham and Davison were urging them to do without troubling the Sovereign any further on the subject. But as sentence had not been passed on Mary at Fotheringhay, but in the Star Chamber at Westminster, it would have been illegal for them to exercise that power, and of this they were perfectly aware, and 1 avoided the snare. 2 The original was found among Paulet's own papers, and has been printed by Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, in his appendix to Robert of Gloucester ; by Sir Harris Nicolas, in his Life of Davison ; and in Patrick Fraser Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. viii. 464 MARY STUAET. unpaid executioners, but the scapegoats for public indig- nation. History had not told her tale to the keepers of Marj Stuart in vain. Sir Amyas Paulet, in reply to Walsingham, expresses " his grief that he should be so un- happy as to live to see the day in which he is required, by direction from his most gracious Sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbiddeth and indignantly adds, " God forbid I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity as to shed blood without law or warrant/' Sir Drue Drury did not commit himself by writing on the subject, but , merely signed his name to a postscript by Sir Amyas Paulet, declaring " that he subscribed in heart to his opinion." If we are to believe the testimony of Davison, the letter to Paulet and Drury suggesting the private execu- ^ tion of their royal charge, was written, by Elizabeth's desire, on the 1st of February, after she had signed the warrant for Mary's execution, with a jest, bidding Davison " go and get ^ it sealed ; but to call on Walsingham by the way, and show it to him, though, as he was then sick, she feared the sight of it would make him die of grief." ^ Then, he says, " she , thought some better means might be adopted, and Paulet and Drury might ease her of the burden, and intimated her-* desire that he and Walsingham would sound their disposi- tions." ^ Davison's statements, if they may be relied on — and hitherto no historian has dreamed of questioning their truth — present evidence of peculiar blackness against Eliza- beth ; but is it not possible he may have belied her ? ^ Now, although I freely avow that I entertained a different opinion when writing my Life of Elizabeth,3 the duty of an historian compels me to declare that a new and singular* light has been thrown on that dark passage — the death of Mary Stuart — ^by the discovery of a contemporary document, which, if founded on fact, transfers the guilt of that deed 1 Davison's Apology— Nicolas's Life of Davison. ^ 3 Lives of the Queens of England, by Agnes Strickland. Library Edition, revised and republished in 1851. 4th Edition. MARY STUART. 465 entirely to those Ministers who, having injured the unfor- tunate heiress of the crown beyond hope of forgiveness, determined that she should not survive Elizabeth, The document in question is apparently the minute of a Privy Council or Star-Chamber investigation, dated 1606, nearly twenty years after Mary's execution, when death had swept all the leading actors in that historical tragedy from the stage. Walsingham, Leicester, Burleigh, Hatton, Paulet, Elizabeth herself, had all gone to their great account, and it is impossible to conceive any motive for fabrication in the matter. It is the deposition, attested by the signatures of two persons of the names of Mayer and Macaw, affirm- ing " that the late Thomas Harrison, a private and con- fidential secretary of the late Sir Francis Walsingham, did voluntarily acknowledge to them that, in conjunction with Thomas Phillipps and Maude, he, by the direction of his master, Sir Francis Walsingham, added to the letters of the late Queen of Scotland those passages that were after- wards brought in evidence against her, and for which she was condemned to sulFer death ; that he could forge the hand and signature of every prince in Europe, and had done so often; and that he was employed by his said master, Sir Francis Walsingham, to forge Queen Eliza- beth's signature to the death-warrant of the Queen of Scots, which none of her Ministers could ever induce her to sign."^ It is certain that the warrant for Mary's execu- tion remained six weeks in Davison's hands unsigned ; and that Elizabeth ever did sign it rests on his unsupported testimony, no witness being present when, according to his statement, she set her hand to that instrument ; and in the self-same hour desired him to take measures for having the necessity for using it superseded by Mary's keepers putting her to death. The joint letter, written by him and Wal- singham, making the proposition to, and its refusal by, Paulet and Drury, are undeniable.^ But whether the signature to the warrant for Mary's exe- ^ Cotton. MS., Caligula, C. ix. f. 468. * Davison's Apology — Life of Davison, by Sir H. Nicolas. VOL. VII. 2 Or 466 MARY STUART. cution were written by the royal hand of Elizabeth, or, as Harrison subsequently affirmed, forged by him at Walsing- ham's desire,^ that fatal instrument was undoubtedly de- livered by Burleigh and his coadjutors to Beale, without lier knowledge or sanction, on the evening of Friday, Febru- ary 3, with directions for him to assemble two out of the five noblemen to whom it was addressed at Fotheringhay Castle, and take the necessary measures for seeing it carried into effect. The warrant was addressed to George Earl of Shrews- bury, Earl Marshal of England; Henry Earl of Kent, George Earl of Cumberland, Henry Earl of Derby, and Henry Earl of Pembroke. Of these, only the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent acted. Shrewsbury's reluctance may be gathered from the fact of his having actually offered to depute his office of Earl Marshal to Burleigh, when he found sentence of death had been passed on Mary f but he could not be excused from the performance of this painful duty. The Earl of Kent, being a stern fanatic, hated Mary on account of her religion, and, as a member of a house that claimed the regal succession, desired her de- struction. Beale, a kindred spirit, undertook the mission with alacrity, and, travelling in the same carriage with the executioner, who was clad in a complete suit of black velvet, arrived at Fotheringhay Castle on Sunday, Febru- ary 5, where he held a private conference with Sir Amyas Paulet for settling the preliminary arrangements. The public mind was at this crisis systematically excited ^ According to his own statement, the forger, like most petty villains, found himself left in the lurch by his employers, for immediately after he had achieved this important feat, Walsingham told my Lord Trea- surer Burleigh that he (Harrison) could imitate any handwriting what- soever so perfectly that no one could perceive the difiference. My Lord Treasurer desired to see if he could imitate his, which he immediately did in his presence so accurately that it could not be detected from the original. Whereupon the sagacious premier observed, " that Harrison was too dan- gerous a person to retain in the Secretary of State's office from which he obtained his immediate dismissal, interdicting him under pain of death from coming within thirty miles of the metropolis, or wherever the Court might be ; so that instead of reaping the reward he had been promised for his services, he was compelled to live in banishment till after my Lord Trea- surer's death. Cotton MS., Caligula, C. ix. f. 468. 2 Shrewsbury to Burleigh, 28th Oct. 1586. Lodge. MARY STUAET. 46T by reports of the discovery of fresh plots against Elizabeth's life, proclamations that the Spaniards had effected a land- ing at Milford Haven, that all the Papists in the north and west of England had risen to join them ; and last, not least, that the Queen of Scots had escaped from her prison, and was about to march to London at their head. Poor Mary was meantime in hourly anticipation of death. She had been deprived, in addition to all her other trials, of the counsel and support of her faithful Master of the House- hold, Sir Andrew Melville, who had been separated from her in the middle of January, without any reason for his removal being alleged. At this agitating crisis, when everything extraordinary, however natural, was construed into a portent, the soldiers who kept guard under the windows of the death-doomed Queen on the night of Sun- day, January 29, half an hour after midnight were startled by the appearance of a large and brilliant meteor, like a flame of fire in the firmament, opposite her bed-chamber window, which returned thrice, to their inexpressible terror, and was not visible in any other quarter of the castle.^ Her faithful servants watched the arrival of every stranger with trembling apprehension ; the ominous preparations for which the advent of Beale and his sable-suited com- panion was the signal, filled them with dismay. Mary herself was perfectly calm ; but feeling the premonitory symptoms of one of her severe illnesses coming on, de- sired her physician Bourgoigne to administer some medi- cine that might arrest its progress, and prevent her from being confined to her bed : " for," observed she, " when the summons for my death comes, I would not willingly be so circumstanced that my incapacity to rise from my bed might be construed into reluctance or fear.''^ When Bour- goigne, who was destitute of drugs, asked Sir Amyas Paulet " to allow him to go into the fields to collect herbs and' simples for the use of his royal patient," a peremptory refusal was returned; the request being repeated with some importunity, Paulet told him " to write down the names of the plants he required, and they should be sent 1 Teulet, ii. 884. Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. Jebb. 468 MARY STUART. him." " I have not sufficient English to make unlearned persons understand the herbs and roots proper for the purpose," replied Bourgolgne. Paulet said " he could not grant the liberty required without first consulting his associate Sir Drue Drurj, but would communicate with him, and return an answer on the Monday, when, if favour- able, he might go out with the apothecary and collect whatever he pleased." Mary was surprised when Bour- goigne told her this, for never since her arrival at Fother- inghay had any one belonging to her been permitted to go without the gates. " But," continues our authority,^ " the wicked traitor expected the commissioners, and only said this to prevent suspicion on the part of the faithful servants of the Queen." When Mary asked the next day, "whether she were to be permitted to commence her course of medi- cine?" Paulet replied significantly, "perad venture you will not require it" He knew the last act of the tragedy was , at hand. The Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, with the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire and their attendants, arrived at the castle on Tuesday the 7th of February. In the afternoon they demanded an audience of the Queen of Scots. She replied, " that, being indisposed, she was preparing to go to bed, but if the matter were of importance she would receive them presently." They said, " it was a matter that ^ would brook no delay." Mary on this called for her mantle, which she had thrown off, and, her ladies having made her ready, seated herself in her usual place at the foot of her bed in an easy-chair by a small work-table, with her ladies and Bourgoigne in attendance. One of her ladies told her that Beale, who had brought the message, had advanced into the ante-room, on which she bade them open the chamber door.2 They did so, and the two Earls, introduced by her keepers Paulet and Drury, and followed by Beale, entered bareheaded. She received them with ^ Ibid. Bourgoigne is supposed to be the author, or at any rate the person by whom the details in this minutely circumstantial account of Mary Stuart's last days were supplied. * Life of Egerton. MARY STUAET. 469 calm dignity, and returned their salutations in the easy gracious manner that was natural to her. Shrewsbury briefly explained the business on which they came, and requested her to hear the warrant. Beale, having first displayed it with the great seal, in yellow wax, pendant from it, proceeded to read it aloud. Mary listened atten- tively, with majestic composure, bowed her head at the conclusion, and, crossing herself, responded, " In the name of God, these tidings are welcome, and I bless and praise Him that the end of all my bitter sufferings is at hand. I did not think the Queen my sister would ever have consented to my death, but God's will be done. He is my principal witness, that I shall render up my spirit into His hands in- nocent of any offence against her, and with a pure heart and conscience clear before His divine Majesty of the crimes whereof I am accused. That soul," continued she, " is far unworthy of the joys of heaven, whose body cannot endure for a moment the stroke of the executioner.'" ^ The earnest- ness with which she spoke brought tears to her eyes as she raised them to heaven, but a triumphant smile was on her lip. " She seemed not," wrote Burleigh's reporter to his patron, " to be in any terror, for aught that appeared by her outward gesture or behaviour, but rather, with smiling cheer and pleasing countenance, digested and accepted the said admonition of preparation to her unexpected execution, saying ' that her death should be welcome unto her/ " She asked what time was appointed for her to suffer. " To-morrow morning at eight o'clock. Madam," replied Shrewsbury. "That," replied Mary, "is very sudden, and leaves no time for preparation. In consequence of my papers being seized and detained, I have not yet made my will ; and it is necessary that I should endeavour to make some arrangements, to provide for my faithful servants who have sacrificed everything for my sake, and who, in losing me, will lose everything/' She entreated that a little more time might be allowed for her to make those necessary arrangements, as well as for the performance of ^ Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. Ty tier's Hist, of Scotland. 470 MARY STUART. the religious offices requisite to prepare her for death. Beale observed, " that it was more than two mouths since he and Lord Buckhurst had brought her the announcement of her condemnation;" and Shrewsbury abruptly exclaimed, " No, no, madam, it is not in our power to prolong the time. You must die to-morrow at the hour we have named." ^ The Earl of Kent told her " she might have either the Bishop or the Dean of Peterborough for her consolation," and observed, " that the Dean of Peterborough was a very learned theo- logian, and would be able to show her the errors of the false religion in which she had been brought up, and to instruct her in the truth ; and as she had now so little time to remain in the world, it would be well for her to acknowledge her faults, and embrace a true faith for the salvation of her soul, instead of amusing herself with popish follies, abominations, and childish toys. But as she was a woman of some understanding, she might be able to discern the difference, if she heard so learned and able a minister as the said Dean." She replied, " that she had both heard and read much on the subject, espe- cially since her detention in England, but her mind was fully made up that she would die in the religion in which she had been baptised, and would willingly give ten thou- sand lives if she had them, and not only shed her blood, but endure the severest tortures in its cause." " Madam," interrupted the Earl of Kent, " your life would be the death of our religion, and your death will be its pre- servation."^ "Ah !" exclaimed Mary, " I did not flatter myself with the thought that I was worthy of such a death, and I humbly receive it as an earnest of my acceptance into the number of God's chosen servants." Then she spoke of the ill-treatment she had suffered, notwithstanding her high rank as the native Queen of Scotland, a Queen-Dowager of France, the great-granddaughter of Henry VII., the nearest relation to their Queen, and the rightful heiress of England. She had been promised friendship, but had been detained in cruel captivity nearly nineteen years, all which she attri- 1 Brantome. Jebb, Martyre de Marie Stuart. Tytler's Hist, of Scot. ^ Mort de la Royne d'Escosse, MARY STUART. 471 buted to tlie artifices and Intrigues of the Ministers of the Queen of England, who for their own private interests had never allowed them to meet. And at last, by an unjust ac- cusation/and the illegal sentence of those who had no autho- rity over her, an independent Sovereign, she was doomed to die by the hand of the executioner. " I take God to witness," continued she, placing her hand impressively on the New Testament which lay on her table, " that I never desired, sought, nor consented to the death of your Queen." ^ " That book is a popish Testament," exclaimed the Earl of Kent ; " your oath is of no value." " It is," replied Mary, " the version authorised by our holy Catholic Church, therefore more sacred, in my opinion, than your Protestant translation, which I do not receive." She declined the ministry of either the Bishop or Dean of Peterborough, and begged to be allowed to see her own almoner. This indulgence was peremptorily refused by the two Earls as against the law of the land, and opposed to their consciences. " Then," said Mary, " I must trust in the mercy of God to excuse the want of such rites as His holy church deems essential in a preparation for death." ^ The Earls had now risen to depart, but she had some questions she desired to ask. " Had the Queen of England sent any answer to her last letter ? " " None," was the reply. " Would she accede to her request, to allow her body to be removed by her servants for burial, either in the Royal Abbey of St Denis, by the late King her husband, or by the late Queen her mother at Eheims ? " " They did not know." " Would their Queen return her papers, and allow her poor servants to receive the trifling payments she had bequeathed them? " Sir Arayas Paulet said, " he thought, that inasmuch as her papers could not pleasure the Queen's Majesty, they would be returned, and also her little furniture would be granted according to her disposition." Then she asked " whether her son were well, and how he took her treatment? Had he and the other princes of Christen- dom made any efforts in her behalf?" Lastly, she in(juired whether her secretaries were alive or dead. Sir Drue Drury 1 Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. ^ Ibid. 472 MARY STUART. replied, they were both living. She asked of Nau in par- ticular. " He is alive, but in close prison," said Drury. Mary, who had no means of knowing the truth, and sus- pected that Nau had borne false witness against her, ex- claimed, '* Nau is the author of my death j he has sacri- ficed me to save his own life." The Earls, on their first entrance into the castle, had, according to the tenor of their instructions, demanded "that the body of the Scottish Queen should be delivered into their custody by her keepers." On withdrawing, the Earl of Shrewsbury, turning to Sir Amyas Paulet, who was be- hind him, said, " Sir Amyas, we remit this lady into your hands again. You will take charge of her, and keep her safely till our return hither." ^ Bourgoigne, who, like all Mary's servants, was weep- ing bitterly, remonstrated " on the suddenness of the an- nouncement, and shortness of the time allowed for his royal mistress to arrange her affairs, both temporal and eternal, declaring that the humblest individual — nay, the greatest criminal — would have been granted a longer interval to prepare for death. More courtesy and consideration ought surely to be shown to a Princess of her high rank; more particularly," he added, " by the Earl of Shrewsbury," to whom he especially addressed himself, " as one with whom she had been living so many years as his prisoner ; but," continued the worthy physician, " if your heart is not touched with compassion for this noble Princess, to grant her a trifling respite to prepare for death, you may at least have pity on her faithful servants, who will be rendered des- titute by her being deprived of the means of providing for them ; and for the sake of the services I have, you know, often rendered you, and others of your family and house- hold, in the time of sickness, by endeavouring to alleviate your sufferings, taking no less pains for you and yours than for my Queen." ^ Mary listened in silence to her physician's tearful plead- ing, and when he paused, repeated, " I have not yet made my will." Shrewsbury briefly replied, " I have no power ^ Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. Tytler. « Ibid, MARY STUART. to prolong the time," and retired, followed hy the others. Then all the servants, both male and female, who had with difficulty restrained the expression of their feelings, broke into passionate lamentations. Mary turned about with a smiling countenance to pacify them. " Up, Jane Kennedy," cried she, in a cheerful tone, to her oldest and dearest friend, in that sorrowful little band ; " leave weep- ing, and be doing, for the time is short. Did I not tell you, ray children," continued she, tenderly addressing them all, " that it would come to this? Blessed be God that it has come, and fear and sorrow are at an end. Weep not, neither lament, for it will avail nothing, but rejoice rather that you see me so near the end of ray long troubles and afflictions. Now, then, take it patiently, and let us pray to God together." The raen withdrew in tears, and she and her maidens continued for some time in their devotions, after which she proceeded to business, counting and dividing all the money in her possession, and putting each sum into a separate little purse, with a slip of paper, on which she wrote with her own hand the name of the person for whom it was destined. She desired supper to be brought in earlier than ordinary, and was served at that meal by Bourgoigne, who waited on her now at table, in the absence of Sir Andrew Melville. She ate sparingly, as usual, and in the course of the meal tried to cheer her sorrowful attendant, who, instead of endeavour- ing to console her, did nothing but wipe his eyes, and en- deavour to repress his bursts of weeping. " Did you not mark the power of truth, Bourgoigne,"' said she, " during the discourse I had with the Earl of Kent, who was sent hither, I suppose, to convert me ? but it would require a doctor of a different fashion to do that. I was, they said, to die for attempting the life of the Queen of England, of which you know I am innocent ; but now this Earl lets out the fact, that it is on account of my religion. Oh, glorious thought, that I should be chosen to die for such a cause/' ^ When she had supped, she caused a cup to be filled with wine, and drank to her attendants, bidding them pledge her ' Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. Martyre de Marie Stuart. 474 MARY STUART. for the last time. They did so on their knees, mingling their fast-flowing tears with their wine. One and all entreated her to forgive them if they had ever offended or injured her, which she readily promised to do, and entreated them, in her turn, to pardon her if she had ever treated any of them with harshness or injustice. Then she exhorted them to be constant in their religion, and to love one another, giving up all their little quarrels and jealousies for her sake, and living all together in Christian amity, which would be the easier, now one who was accustomed to sow dissension in her household was no longer among them. She alluded, it seems, to Nau.^ When she had spoken thus, she rose from table, and said she would go down to her wardrobe, and divide everything that remained of her dress, and the few ornaments which, in consequence of being in the care of various trusty members of her household at the time her papers and jewels were seized at Chartley, had escaped the clutches of Wade and the other English officials who had rifled her caskets and cabinets on that occasion. Bourgoigne suggested that, in order to spare herself fatigue, the things should be brought to her, which was done ; and she, seated in her chair, divided those poor relics of her former splendour among her friends and servants, absent as well as present, forgetting no one, from the Kings of France and Spain, and her kin- dred of the house of Guise, down to the lowliest damsel in her prison household.^ She desired that a fair sapphire-ring, which she took from her finger, might be conveyed, as a token of her esteem and grateful acknowledgment of his loyal services, to her brave kinsman, Lord Claud Hamilton, with an affectionate message and her last farewell.^ Several of the 1 Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. Martyre de Marie Stuart. Tytler. * Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. s This fact is mentioned by that bitter enemy of Mary Stuart, Bishop Burnet, in his " History of the House of Hamilton." The ring," he says, " is carefully preserved as one of the most precious heirlooms of that illus- trious family." It is now in the possession of Lord Claud's accomplished representative, the present Duke of Hamilton, by whom it was courteously shown to me, with other historic relics, at Hamilton Palace in Novem- MARY STUART. 475 souvenirs distributed by the plundered Queen on that occasion were of very trivial value. Among the rest was a little drinking-cup or quaigh, made of an Indian nut, with silver rims, feet and handles, the same from which she pledged her servants at supper that night, which she appro- priated to her goddaughter and namesake, Mary Strick- land of Sizergh Castle, Westmoreland, a near relation of her first English friends, Sir Henry Curwen of Workington Hall, and his mother,^ desiring that it might be kept and handed down in the family of that young lady for her sake. 2 The curious signet-ring, with the monogram of Henry and Mary Stuart, connected with true love-knots, and bear- ing the lion on a crowned shield within the hoop, lately found among the ruins of Fotheringhay Castle, was pro- bably lost on this occasion, or perhaps it dropped from Mary's finger in her death agony on the block, and was swept away among the bloody sawdust unobserved. It is supposed, as there is a slight heraldic distinction between the lion on this shield and the royal lion of Scotland, that it was the ring with which Mary invested Darnley with the Dukedom of Albany. Mary sent the diamond- ring, with which the Duke of Norfolk plighted his troth to her, to Don Bernardino Mendoza, in her letter from Chartley, but this signet, a trinket of comparatively little value, she never trans- ber 1857. It is a large square sapphire, of peculiar beauty, rose-cut in several diamond points, and set in gold enamelled blue in the curious cinque-cento work of the period. ^ Agnes Strickland of Sizergh, widow of Sir Thomas Curwen. See Vol. vi. Lives of the Queens of Scotland, p. 105. * Which it still is, being in the possession of Charles Stannard Eustace, Esq., claimant of the Baltinglass peerage, and the lineal descendant and representative of Mary Strickland's daughter, Elizabeth Bigland. This cup has an inscription round the rim, to commemorate the family tradition that it was Mary Stuart's bequest, under circumstances so truly interesting. 476 MARY STUART. ferred to another. It is not mentioned in the inventory of her jewels, and the circumstance of its being found among the ruins of Fotheringhay tells its own tale, by demonstrating that it was retained by her till the last act of her tragedy, as the memorial of love too disinterested ever to be false.^ When Mary had given away or devised everything be- longing to her, except the dress she intended to wear the next day, and a fair handkerchief fringed with gold, which she gave Jane Kennedy to bandage her eyes with for the block, she wrote her celebrated letter to De Prdan, her almoner, who was under the same roof with her, althotigh not permitted to visit her, telling him " she had refused the services of a Protestant minister, and begging him to recommend such prayers and portions of Scripture as he considered best adapted for her, and to keep vigil and prayer with her and for her that night ; desiring to make her gen- eral confession to him thus, being prevented from doing it otherwise, declaring she died innocent, and requesting his absolution." Then she commenced a farewell letter to the King of France, telling him she was to die at eight o'clock the next morning, and that she should die innocent of any crime, and earnestly recommended her faithful ser- vants to his care. She postponed its conclusion till after she had written her will, which occupied two sheets of closely-written paper, which anxious task she accomplished with w^onderful celerity. After she had finished, her damsels washed her feet ; and being now much exhausted, she said she would take some repose, the clock having struck two, but desired, according to her invariable custom, to have some devotional readino- from her Book of Hours, bidding Jane Kennedy, who was her reader, to select for her consideration some saint who had been a great sinner. Jane culled over the table of contents, but when she came to the penitent thief on the cross, Mary bade her read that comfortable example of Christ's pardoning grace. " He was," she said, " a great sinner, but not so great a sinner as I am. May my ^ This ring is in the possession of Mr Waterton. MARY STUAHT. 477 blessed Saviour, in memory of His passion, have mercy on me in the hour of death, as He had on him."^ Her weary head now rested on her pillow for the last time ; but her faithful ladies, who all with devoted love kept tearful vigils round the bed of their beloved mistress, thought she did not sleep. Her eyes were indeed closed, and her features, com- posed as if in tranquil slumber, retained no trace of the excitement she had gone through during the last agitating hours ; but her lips continued to move as if in silent prayer, and occasionally a soft smile passed over her placid coun- tenance. The heavenward spirit, reposing in the arms of faith and love, rested from its labours, and received strength for the last sore conflict. At six o'clock on the fatal morning of the 8th of February, Mary Stuart told her ladies " she had but two hours to live, and bade them dress her as for a festival." Very minute particulars of that last toilette have been preserved, both by French and English historians, and a contemporary MS. in the Vatican contains a description of it from the pen of an eyewitness of her death.2 It is there stated that she wore a widow's dress of black velvet, but spangled all over with gold,ablack satin pourpoint and kirtle, and under these a petti- coat of crimson velvet, with a body of the same colour, and a white veil of the most delicate texture, of the fashion worn by princesses of the highest rank, thrown over her coif, and descending to the ground; also, which is not mentioned in any other account, that she had caused a camisole of fine Scotch plaid, reaching from the throat to the waist, ' Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. 2 I am indebted to the kindness and courtesy of Prince Massimo for the communication of a transcript of this curious document. Also to his learned sister, the Princess Lancellotti, for a facsimile of Mary' s letter to the Pope, making confession "of her unworthiness of sal- vation, save through the all-sufficient satisfaction of the blood of her crucified Saviour, on whose merits she alone relies for pardon and ac- ceptance." She craves absolution for all her sins and shortcomings, which she declares " have been manifold ; " but solemnly protests " her inno- cence of the crimes of which she has been accused by her enemies." As a member of the Church of Rome, Mary, if really guilty, would, of course, have deemed it an act of sacrilege to make such denial to any ecclesiastic of her Church, much more its head, while in the act of asking absolu- tion, which the wilful concealment of any sin would have rendered worse jthan unavailing. 478 MARY STUART. but witliout a collar, to be prepared the night before, that when her upper garments should be removed, she might escape the distress of appearing uncovered before so many people. Camden says " her habit was modest and matron- like," and Burleigh's reporter gives the following minute particulars, which coincide with those communicated by Chateauneuf, also from the notes of an eyewitness.-"^ " On the head she had a dressing of lawn, edged with bone lace;" the covrechef or widow's coif mentioned by Cha- teauneuf ; " a pomander chain, and an Agnus Dei about her neck ; and a pair of beads at her girdle, with a cross ; a veil of lawn, fastened to her cawl, bowed out with wire, and edged about with bone lace. Her gown was of black satin printed (black brocaded satin), with a train, and long sleeves down to the ground, set with acorn buttons of jet, trimmed with pearl. Her kirtle was of figured black satin, and her petticoat skirts of crimson velvet; her shoes of Spanish leather ; a pair of green silk garters ; her nether stockings worsted, coloured watchet (pale blue), clocked with silver, and edged on the tops with silver ; and next her legs a pair of Jersey hose. She wore also drawers of white fustian. While her ladies were assisting her to dress, she, with the feminine delicacy of a really modest woman, earnestly entreated them to be watchful over her in the last terrible moment; when, observed she, " I shall be inca- pable of thinking of this poor body, or bestowing any care upon it. Oh, then, for the love of our blessed Saviour, abandon me not while under the hands of the execu- tioner ! " ^ They promised, with streaming eyes, to be near her and to cover her body as she fell. Then she entered her oratory alone, and kneeling before the miniature altar,^ at which her almoner had been accus- ^ In Teulet's Collections. ^ Dargaud. 8 The small portable altar used by Mary is at Munich, where it is highly prized. A Latin inscription declares " that it was used by her in all her English prisons, and would, if permitted, have accompanied her to the scafifold." Communicated by Henry Drummond, Esq., of Albury, M.P., author of Noble Scotch Families. It was probably verbally bequeathed by her to Lesley, Bishop of Ross, who was at Munich at the time of her death. MAEY STUART. 479 tomed to celebrate mass, opened the gold and jewelled cibo- rium^ in which the Pope had sent her a consecrated wafer with a dispensation to do what had never before been permitted to one of the laity — administer the Eucharist to herself^ preparatory to her death, if denied the ministra- tion of a priest. It is impossible for a Protestant biogra- pher to describe the feelings with which Mary Stuart per- formed her lonely communion, under circumstances so strange to a member of the Roman Catholic Church. No mortal eye beheld her in that hour; but the following Latin prayer is well known to have been extemporised by her during her last devotions on the morning of her death : — " 0 Domine Deus ! speravi in te ; 0 care me Jesu, nunc libera me. In dura catena, in miser^ psBna, desidero Languendo, gemendo et genu fiectendo Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me ! " My Lord and my God I have hoped in Thee ; 0 Jesu, sweet Saviour, now liberate me. 1 have languished for Thee in afflictions and chains ; Lamenting and sighing through long years of pains. Adoring, imploring, on humbly bowed knee, I crave, of Thy mercy, by grace set me free. The wintry morning had dawned before Mary left her ora- tory. She then concluded her letter to her royal brother-in- law, Henry III. of France, by adding several earnest peti- tions in behalf of her faithful servants, and the final date— ^ The ciborium or covered challice, supposed to be the same in which the consecrated wafers were transmitted to Mary by the Pope, is in the possession of Sir John Maxwell, Bart, of Polloc, having been purchased by him from the descendant of the family to whom it was devised by Mary as her last and most precious gift. It is a very elegant little vase of chased gold, of the tripod form, en- graved all over with angels, and groups of flowers and fruit. The cover is surmounted with an elegant little funereal urn, set with garnets, on a stem of blood-stone agate. The tripod itself is placed on a dial-plate cut in highly-polished blood-stone, forming the top of a cylindrical pillar of the same gem, set round with two rows of noble garnets, one at bottom and one on the top of the pedestal, besides a very elegant enamelled border of dark blue and gold. The pedestal being hollow, and accessible when the gold pin which holds this curious toy together is pulled up, was evidently so contrived for the purpose of concealing papers, or pei-haps jewels might have been conveyed in that receptacle for the unfortunate Mary. 2 Brantome, who derived his information of Mary's last hours from two of her ladies. MAEY STUART. " The morning of my death, this Wednesday, 8th February. Signed Marie R.''^ She returned to her bed-chamber, where, seating herself by the fire, she began to console her weeping ladies,^ by declaring the comfort she felt in her approaching release from her long afflictions, and reminded them " that her uncle, the late Duke de Guise, had told her in her child- hood ' that she possessed the hereditary courage of her race, and he thought she would well know how to die;'"^ yet he had never anticipated the possibility of her suffer- ing the terrible death by which she was about to verify the truth of his prediction. She spoke of the transitory nature of human felicity, and the vanity of earthly great- ness, whereof she was destined to serve as an example ; having been Queen of the realms of France and Scotland, the one by birth, the other by marriage ; and after being at the summit of all worldly honours, had to submit herself to the hands of the executioner, though innocent, which was her greatest consolation — the crime alleged against her being only a flimsy pretext for her destruction." * She desired her attendants " all to be present at her death, in order to bear testimony of her deportment, and her firm adherence to her religion ; and although she knew,"' she said, " it would be heart-breaking to them to see her go through such a tragedy on the scaffold, yet she prayed them to be witnesses of all she did and said, being assured she could have none more faithful. After all was over, she hoped they might be allowed to carry her remains to France, and exhorted them to remain altogether till they could do so. She had left them her coach and all her horses for their conveyance, and had put sufficient money in Bourgoigne's hands to pay the expenses of their journey." Bourgoigne now expressed a fear that her strength would be exhausted, and besought her to take a little wine and a piece of toasted bread, which he had prepared for her. She smiled, and thanked him for bringing her her last ^ Jebb, vol. xi. p. 305. ^ grantome. * Dargaud, •* Martyre de Marie Stuart. MARY STTJART. 481 meal, and desired him to read her will in her presence to \her assembled servants, which he did. The ladies then pre- ^^ent were — Jane Kennedy, Elizabeth Curie, Gillies Mow- |i)raj, Benee Rallay, otherwise Beauregard,^ Marie Paiges, her goddaughter (daughter of Bastian Paiges and Margaret .Cawood, his wife), and Susan Korkadj.^ Of the men, were !DominiqueBourgoigne, her physician ; Pierre Gourion, sur- ^^eon ; and Jacques Gervais, apothecary ; Hannibal Stou- vart, valet-de-chambre ;^ Didier, her aged butler; Jean Landor, pantler ; and Martin Huet, equery of the kitchen. The names of her absent servants, who were held captive at Chartley, including Mrs Curie, Bastian, his wife Mar- garet, and their children, were not forgotten, although her means of paying the legacies she devised were rather of a visionary nature, consisting chiefly of the proceeds left by her twenty years' lawsuit, this having at last been decided in her favour, together with the arrears of her dower-pension for the current year, which she earnestly beseeches the King of France to pay for the sake of her poor destitute servants.* When the reading of her will was finished, Mary depo- sited it open in a box with the letters she had written, and took a tender personal farewell of all her servants, kissing all the women, and extending her hand to be kissed by the men, lamenting it was not in her power to do more for them. Elizabeth Curie threw herself at the feet of her royal mistress in an agony of tears, and implored forgiveness for ^ The niece of her faithful old lady-in-waiting, who died three years previously at Tutbury, with whom this younger Ren6e Rallay has some- times been confounded. 2 It is easy to detect under the French orthography for this young lady's name, that it was in reality Kirkcaldy, probably a daughter or niece of the gallant defender of Edinburgh Castle. ' Whom she mentions in a previous draught of her will as her godson, and a poor idiot, and recommends to the charity of the Duke of Guise. * " Mary's testament and letters," says Ritson the antiquary, " which T have seen blotted with her tears, in the Scotch College at Paris, will remain perpetual monuments of singular abilities, tenderness, and affec- tion ; of a head and heart of which no other Queen in the world was probably ever possessed."— Quotation in the Life of Mary Queen of Scots by Henry Glassford Bell, Esq. VOL. VII. 2 H 482 MARY STUAET. her brother, Gilbert Curie. Mary assured her " she forgave him and every one, as she hoped herself to be forgiven."^ Then she requested all her servants to unite with her iv: prayer. Just as they had disposed themselves to do so, Bour- goigne and Gourion told her " that Mademoiselle Hallay Beauregard and Gillies Mowbray had complained ' that she had left no remembrances for them, for their names were not mentioned in her will ; not that they were greedy oH bequests, but thought the omission might cause it to be said they had not performed faithful service to her/ " Mary assented to the justice of the remonstrance, rose from her knees with the greatest goodness, and repaired the omission by inserting their names and legacies in one of the blank spaces. Bourgoigne reminded her that she had " also, in her haste, forgotten to mention her almoner, De Prean," on which she inserted his name and legacy, with a recommendation for him to be appointed to two prebendaries.^ " Now,^' said she, " my friends, I have finished with the world ; let us all kneel and pray together for the last time." Her devotions were interrupted by the summons of the High Sheritf, Thomas Andrews, who, finding the ante-chamber door barred and locked, smote loudly against it with his wand to warn her that her hour was come. The castle clock had struck eight. Being told " her Majesty was engaged in prayer with her servants," he accepted the excuse, and with- drew. In about a quarter of an hour he returned, with Sir Amyas Paulet, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, Beale, and several others, and knocked again. The servant who had charge of the door having, after the first summons, been directed by hisroyal mistress not to attempt resistance, lest violence should be offered, opened it, and the Sheriff entered alone with his white wand in his hand. Mary and her ladies, who were still on their knees at the upper end of the chamber, re- mained absorbed in their devotions without attempting to move. He stood silently contemplating them till they had concluded the prayer in which they were engaged ; then, in a faltering voice, addressing the death-doomed Queen, he La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse — Jebb, vol. ii. p. 632. * Ibid. MAEY STUAET. 483 said, " Madam, the Lords have sent me for you." Mary, becoming for the first time aware of his presence, turned her face towards him, and intrepidly replied, " Yes ; let us go." ^ Bourgoigne assisted her to rise from her knees, and asked her if she would take the ivory crucifix from the altar. She thanked him for reminding her of it, and gave it to poor Hannibal to carry before her. Supported by Bourgoigne and Gourion — for she could not move without help — she crossed the chamber, but before she reached the door they paused, and told her " they and all her servants were ready to do her any service, and to wait upon her to her last sigh, and even, if permitted, to die with her; but there was one thing they could not and would not do — no power on earth should in- duce them to conduct her to the scaffold." " You are right," replied Mary; and, addressing herself to the Sheriff, who was preceding her, said, " My servants will not lead me to death, and as I cannot walk without support, I must have assistance.''^ Two of Sir Amyas Paulet's servants were accordingly appointed to assist her. Her own servants, overpowered with grief and horror, followed her weeping and lamenting, but when they reached the outer door of the gallery, they were rudely stopped, I and told they must go no farther. A passionate scene ensued ; both gentlemen and ladies refused to be separated from their royal mistress ; and even the young maidens tried to force their way after her, but were thrust back with threats and uncivil language. Bourgoigne appealed to the two Earls, and represented " the cruelty of the proceeding, and the unparalleled indignity they were putting on her, in de- priving her of the attendance of her faithful servants at her death, some of whom had not been separated from her during the whole nineteen years of her imprisonment."^ As he could not prevail, Mary herself, addressing the i two Earls, said, " she had certain requests to make, which she hoped would not be refused. One was, that the money, ' La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. 2 * Narrative of the Execution of the Queen of Scots, in a Letter to Bur- leigh. Ellis, 2d series. 484 MARY STUART. her gift to her servant Curie, which had been seized, might be restored to him." Sir Arajas Paulet engaged it should. " Next, that her poor servants might be allowed to have what she had given them hy her will, that they might be kindly treated, and sent safely into their own countries. Lastly," said she, " I conjure you, that these poor afflicted servants of mine may be present with me at my death, that their eyes may behold how patiently their Queen and mistress will endure it." The Earl of Kent, with unprecedented brutality, replied, " Madam, that which you have desired cannot conveniently be grant- ed ; for, if it should, it were to be feared lest some of them, with speeches and other behaviour, would both be grievous to your Grace, and troublesome and unpleasing to us and our company, whereof we have had some experience ; also, that they would not stick to put some superstitious trumpery in practice, if it were but in dipping their handkerchiefs in your Grace's blood, whereof it were very unmeet for us to give allowance." " My Lord," replied Mary, " I will give my word, al- though it be but dead, that they shall do none of these things. But alas, poor souls ! it would do them good to bid their mistress farewell; and I hope your mistress, being a maiden Queen, will vouchsafe, in regard of womanhood, that I shall have some of my own women about me at my death. I know her Majesty hath not given you such straight com- mission but that you might grant me a far greater courtesy than this, even if I were a woman of far meaner calling." Perceiving there was no intention of granting her request, her tears burst forth, and she added with indignant emotion, " I am cousin to your Queen, descended of the blood-royal of Henry VIL, a married Queen of France, and the anointed Queen of Scotland."^ Long consultation between the Earls and her keepers followed this appeal. At last they told her she might select two of her women and four of her men servants. Mary named her two oldest and best-loved ladies, Jane Ken- ' * Narrative of the Execution of the Queen of Scots, in a Letter to Bur- leigh. Ellis, 2d series. MARY STUART. 485- nedj and Elizabeth Curie, who always slept in her bed- chamber, and had been attached to her personal service more than twenty years ; — Sir Andrew Melville, the Master of the Household ; Bourgoigne, her physician; Gourion, her surgeon; and Gervais, her apothecary. Then she turned, and tenderly bade the others farewell, and blessed them. They flung themselves at her feet, kissing her hand, and clinging to her garments; and when they were at last parted from her, and the door locked upon them, both men and women wept aloud, and their cries were heard even in the hall.^ At the foot of the stairs — which, on account of her lameness, she descended slowly and with great difficulty, supported on each side by two of Paulet's officers, who held her up under her arms — she was met by Andrew Melville, who was now permitted to join her. He threw himself on his knees before her, wringing his hands in an uncontrollable agony of grief, the violence of which almost shook the majestic calmness she had hitherto preserved. " Woe is me," cried he, weep- ing bitterly, " that ever it should be my hard hap to carry back such heavy tidings to Scotland as that my good and gracious Queen and mistress has been beheaded in England." " Weep not, Melville, my good and faithful servant," she replied, " thou shouldst rather rejoice that thou shalt now see the end of the long troubles of Mary Stuart; know, Mel- ville, that this world is but vanity, and full of sorrows. I am Catholic, thou Protestant; but as there is but one Christ, I charge thee in His name to bear witness that I die firm to my religion, a true Scotchwoman, and true to France. Commend me to my dearest and most sweet son.^ Tell him I have done nothing to prejudice him in his realm, nor to disparage his dignity, and that although I could wish he were of my religion, yet if he will live in the fear of God, according to that in which he hath been nurtured, I doubt not he shall do well.^ Tell him, from my example, never to rely too much on human aid, but to seek that which is .; from above. If he follow my advice, he shall have the ^ La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. 2 Stuart's History of Scotland. 3 Doron Basilicon, by James I. 486 MARY STUART. blessing of God in heaven, as I now give him mine on earth." She raised her hand as she concluded, and made the sign of the cross, to bless him in his absence, and her eyes overflowed with tears.^ " May God," continued she, " forgive them that have thirsted for my blood as the hart doth for the brooks of water. O God, who art the author of truth, and the truth . itself, thou knowest that I have always wished the union of England and Scotland." One of the Commissioners, doubt- less the pitiless Earl of Kent, here interrupted her by re- . minding her " that time was wearing away apace." ^ " Pare- well," said she, " good Melville. Farewell, Pray for thy Queen and mistress." The passionate grief of her faithful servant brought infectious tears to her eyes. She bowed herself on his neck, and wept; and, with like sensibility as her cousin. Lady Jane Gray, had kissed and embraced Feckenham on the scaffold, so did she vouchsafe, as sove- reign might, without disparagement of regal dignity, or departure from feminine reserve, the like affectionate fare- well to that true subject who had shared her prison, and was following her to death. She who had experienced the ingratitude of a Moray, a Lethington, and a Mar, could well appreciate the faithful love of Andrew Melville. Another gentleman came to kiss Mary Stuart's hand, and bid her farewell on her way to execution, with demon- strations of deep respect and tender sympathy, together with expressions " of regret and indignation that her blood should be cruelly shed while under his roof." This was Sir William Fitz-William, of Milton, who at that time held Fotheringhay Castle on lease from the Crown. Of a very different spirit from Sir Amyas Paulet, this fine " old English gentleman had shown the royal prisoner all the kind attention in his power. Mary thanked him " for his gentle entreatment of her while in his house," and < begged him " to accept, and keep as a memorial of her grateful appreciation of his courtesy, the portrait of the King her son, which he would find hanging at her bed's ' Unpublished MS. of Mary Stuart's Life and Death, in the Vatican ; comnaunicated by Prince Massimo. * Ibid. MAEY STUART. 487 head, being her last remaining possession that she had not bequeathed.^ The procession proceeded in the following order : — First came the Sheriff and his men; next Mary's keepers, Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drue Drury; the Earl of Kent and Beale; then the Earl of Shrewsbury, as Earl Marshal, bearing his baton raised, immediately preceding the royal victim, who, having rallied all the energies of her coura- geous spirit to vanquish bodily infirmity, moved with a proud firm step. She was followed by Melville, who bore her train,^ and her two weeping ladies, clad in mourning weeds. The rear was brought up by Bourgoigne, Gourion, and Gervais, her three medical attendants. A platform, twelve feet square and two and a half high, covered with black cloth, and surrounded with a rail, had been erected at the upper end of the great banqueting-hall at Fotheringhay, near the fireplace, in which, on account of the coldness of the weather, a large fire was burning. On the scaffold was placed the block, the chair, covered also with black cloth, for the Queen, with a cushion of crimson velvet before it, and two stools for the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury. About a hundred gentlemen who had been admitted to behold the mournful spectacle, stood at the lower end of the hall ; but the scaffold was barricaded, and a strong guard of the Sheriff's and Earl Marshal's men environed it, to prevent the possibility of a rescue.^ 1 History of Fotheringhay, by Bishop Patrick. Jacob's Peerage. Family History of the Fitz- Williams, by Hugh Fitz- William. The portrait is said to be a fine work of art, and is still in the family of Sir William Fitz- William. ^ Lingard. Tytler. Ellis. Camden. * An adagio piece of old music, of a similar character to the death-march in Saul, has been lately discovered in MS. at Oxford, with a statement that it was performed ou Queen Mary's entrance into the hall at Fotheringhay; but as there is no mention of music in any of the minute contemporary accounts of her execution, it is more probable that it was played to amuse the people who thronged the courts of the castle without ; and it is a remarkable fact that this air, which, according to the slow time arranged, produces the most solemn and pathetic effect conceivable, is discovered, when played fast, to be the old popular tune called "Jumping Joan," invariably played in those days, and sung with appropriate words, to brut- alise the rabble at the burning of a witch. The adagio arrangement, how- ever, proves that if this detestable exercise of malice were decreed by Mary Stuart's foes to embitter her last moments, it was defeated by the band performing it in the solemn style of church music, as a funeral march. 488 MARY STUAET. The dignified composure and melancholy sweetness of her countenance, in which the intellectual beauty of reflective middle age had superseded the charms that in youth had been celebrated by all the poets of France and Scotland, her majestic and intrepid demeanour, made a profound im- pression on every one present when Mary Stuart and her sorrowful followers entered the hall of death. She surveyed the sable scaffold, the block, the axe, the executioner and spectators, undauntedly, as she advanced to the foot of the scaffold. There she paused, for she required assistance. Sir Amyas Paulet tendered her his hand, to aid her in ascending the two steep steps by which it was approached. Mary accepted the proffered attention of her persecuting jailer with the queenly courtesy that was natural to her. " I thank you, sir," she said, when he had helped her to mount the fatal stair; this is the last trouble I shall ever give you." ^ Having calmly seated herself in the chair that had been provided for her, with the two Earls standing on either side, and the executioner in front holding the axe, with the edge towards her, Beale sprang upon the scaffold with unfeeling alacrity, and read the death-warrant in a loud voice. She listened to it with a serene and even smiling countenance ; but, as before, bowed her head and crossed herself when it was concluded, in token of her submission to the will of God. " Now, madam," said the Earl of Shrewsbury, " you see what you have to do." She answered briefly and^ em- phatically, "do your duty."^ Then she asked for her al- moner that she might pray with him, but this being denied, Dr Fletcher, the Dean of Peterborough, standing directly before her without the rails, and bending his body very low, began to address her. " Mr Dean, trouble not your- self nor me," said the Queen, " for know that I am set- tled in the ancient Catholic and Roman faith, in defence whereof, by God's grace, I mind to spend my blood."' ^ " Madam," replied the Dean, " change your opinion, and repent you of your former wickedness." " Good Mr Dean," ' 1 Lingard. * Teulet, vol. ii. p. 72. « Ellis. MARY STUAET. 489 rejoined she," trouble notyourself anymoreabout this matter. I was born in this religion, and am resolved to die in this religion." The Earls, perceiving her resolution was not to be shaken, said: "Madam, we will pray for your Grace with Mr Dean, that you may have your mind lightened with the true knowledge of God and his word." " My lords," replied the Queen, " if you will pray with me, I will even from ray heart thank you ; but to pray with you, in your manner, who are not of the same religion with me, were a sin."^ The Earls then bade the Dean "say on according to his own pleasure." This he did, not by reciting the beautiful office for the dying or the burial service from our Anglican church, but in a bitter polemic composition of his own, tending neither to comfort nor edification. Mary heeded him not, but began to pray with absorbing and tearful earnestness from her own breviary and the psalter, uniting portions from the 31st, 51st, and 91st Psalms. She prayed in Latin, in French, and finally in English, for God to pardon her sins and forgive her foes ; for Christ's afflicted church ; for the peace and prosperity of England and Scotland ; for her son and for Queen Elizabeth ; not with the ostentation of a Pharisee, but the holy benevolence of a dying Christian. At the conclusion of her last prayer she rose, and, holding up the crucifix, exclaimed, " As Thy arms, 0 Christ ! were ex- tended on the cross, even so receive me into the arms of Thy mercy, and blot out all my sins with Thy most precious blood." " Madam," interrupted the Earl of Kent, " it were better for you to eschew such popish trumpery, and bear Him in your heart." " Can I," she mildly answered, "hold the representation of the sufferings of my crucified Eedeemer in my hand, without bearing him, at the same time, in my heart ? " ^ The two executioners, seeing her preparing to make her- self ready for the block, knelt before her and prayed her for- giveness. " I forgive you and all the world with all mine 1 Letter of an eyewitness to Burleigh— Ellis. Patrick's Hist, of Peter- borough. Teulet. Lingard. Tytler. Camden. La Mort de la Eoyne d'Escosse. * Narrative in Teulet by an eyewitness — Lingard. 490 MARY STUART. heart," she replied, " for I hope this death Avill give an end to all my troubles."^ They offered to assist her in removing her mantle, but she drew back, and requested them not to touch her, observing with a smile, " I have not been accustomed to be served by such pages of honour, nor to disrobe before so numerous a company." 2 Then beckoning to Jane Ken- nedy and Elizabeth Curie, who were on their knees in tears below, they came to her on the scaffold ; but when they saw for what purpose they were required, they began to scream and cry, and were too much agitated at first to render her the assistance she required, so that she began to take out the pins herself, a thing to which she was not accustomed. " Do not weep," said she, tenderly reproving them, " I am very happy to leave this world. You ought to rejoice to see me die in so good a cause. Are you not ashamed to weep ? Nay, if you do not give over these lamentations, I must send you away, for you know I have promised for you." 3 Then she took off her gold pomander, chain, and rosary, which she had previously desired one of her ladies to convey to the Countess of Arundel as a last token of her regard.^ The executioner seized it, and secreted it in his shoe. Jane Kennedy, with the resolute spirit of a brave Scotch lassie, snatched it from him, and a struggle ensued. Mary mildly interposing, said : " Friend, let her have it, she will give you more than its value in money ; " but he sullenly replied, " It is my perquisite." ^ " It would have been strange indeed," observes our authority with sarcastic bitterness, " if this poor Queen had met with courtesy from an English hangman, who had experienced so little from the nobles of that country — witness the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife."^ Before Mary proceeded further in her preparations for the block, she took a last farewell of her weeping ladies, kissing, 1 Teulet, vol. ii. p. 880. 2 MS. Narrative of Mary's Life and Death, in the Vatican. ' La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. * This beautiful rosary is in the possession of Mr Howard of Corby Castle. * Teulet, vol. ii. " La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse — supposed to be written by Bour- goigne. MARY STUART. 491 embracing, and blessing them, bj signing them with the cross, which benediction they received on their knees.^ Her upper garments being removed, she remained in her petticoat of crimson velvet and camisole, which laced behind, and covered her arms with a pair of crimson- velvet sleeves. Jane Kennedy now drew from her pocket the gold-bordered handkerchief Mary had given her to bind her eyes. Within this she placed a Corpus Christi cloth, pro- bably the same in which the consecrated wafer sent to her by the Pope had been enveloped. Jane folded it cornerwise, kissed it, and with trembling hands prepared to execute this last office ; but she and her companion burst into a fresh paroxysm of hysterical sobbing and crying. Mary placed her finger on her lips reprovingly, " Hush,"' said she, " I have promised for you ; weep not, but pray for me." When they had pinned the handkerchief over the face of their beloved mistress, they were compelled to with- draw from the scaffold ; and " she was left alone to close up the tragedy of life by herself, which she did with her wonted courage and devotion," Kneeling on the cushion, she re- peated in her usual clear firm voice — " In te Domine speravi" " In thee. Lord, have I hoped ; let me never be put to confusion." Being then guided by the executioners to find the block, she bowed her head upon it intrepidly, exclaiming, as she did so, — " In manus tuas." " Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit/'^ The Earl of Shrews- bury raised his baton, in performance of his duty as Earl Marshal, to give the signal for the coup-de-grace, but he averted his head at the same time, and covered his face with his hand to conceal his agitation and streaming tears. A momentary pause ensued, for the executioner's assistant per- ceived tiiat the Queen, grasping the block firmly with both bands, was resting her chin upon them, and that they must have been cut off or mangled if he had not removed them, which he did by drawing them down and holding them tightly in his own, while his companion struck her with the ' See Vignette. * La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. Bishop Patrick's Hist. Peterborough. Gunton's Hist. Peterborough. Camden. Tytler. Lingard. Ellis. 492 MARY STUART. axe a cruel but ineffectual blow. Agitated alike by the courage of the royal victim, and the sobs and groans of the sympathising spectators, he missed his aim and inflicted a deep wound on the side of the skull. She neither screamed nor stirred, but her sufferings were too sadly testified by the convulsion of her features, when, after the third blow, the butcher-work was accomplished, and the severed head, streaming with blood, was held up to the gaze of the people. " God save Queen Elizabeth ! " cried the executioner. "So let all her enemies perish !" exclaimed the Dean of Peter- borough: one solitary voice alone responded " Amen ! " it was that of the Earl of Kent. The silence, the tears, and groans of the witnesses of the tragedy, yea, even of the very assistants in it, proclaimed the feelings with which it had been regarded.^ Mary's weeping ladies now approached and besought the executioners " not to strip the corpse of their beloved mis- tress, but to permit her faithful servants to fulfil her last re- quest by covering it, as modesty required, and removing it to her bedchamber, where themselves and her other ladies would perform the last duties.^' But they were rudely repulsed, hurried out of the hall, and locked into a chamber, while the executioners, intent only on securing what they considered their perquisites, began, with ruffian hands, to despoil the still warm and palpitating remains. One faithful attendant, however, still lingered, and refused to be thrust away. Mary"'s little Skye terrier had followed her to the scaffold unnoticed, had crept closer to her when she laid her head on the block, and was found crouching under her garments, saturated with her blood ; it was only by violence he could be removed, and then he went and lay between her head and body, moaning piteously. Some barbarous fanatic, desiring to force a verification of Knox's favourite comparison between this unfortunate Princess and Jezebel, tried to tempt the dog to lap the blood of his royal 1 Ibid. Martyre de Marie Stuart. Brantome. Teulet. When the executioner took up the head, it fell out of the coif and dressings, and the hair appeared perfectly grey, being polled very short, which the Earl of Shrewsbury said had been done in his house for the con- venience of applying cataplasms to relieve her severe headaches — Teulet. MAEY STUART. 493 mistress ; but, with intelligence bejond that of his species, the sagacious creature refused; nor could he be induced ever again to partake of food, but pined himself to death. i The head was exposed on a black velvet cushion to the view of the populace in the courtyard for an hour from the large window in the hall. No feeling but that of sympathy for her, and indignation against her murderers, was elicited by this woeful spectacle. The remains of this injured Princess were contemptuously covered with the old cloth that had been torn from the billiard-table, and carried into a large upper chamber, where the process of embalming was per- formed the following day by surgeons from Stamford and Peterborough. The curious contemporary portrait of the severed head of Mary Stuart in a charger, now at Abbots- ford, was probably painted by some artist who either obtained access to the royal remains in the character of an assistant to those gentlemen, or through the favour of the indulgent castellan, Sir William Fitz- William. It is placed on a table covered with a scarlet-velvet cloth. A narrow parchment-scroll appears from beneath the charger with this inscription — " Maria Scotias Regina, February 9th, 1587;" and the name of the artist, Amyas Cawood, pro- bably the nephew or brother of Bastian's wife, the faithful Margaret Cawood.^ This affecting posthumous portrait bears an unmistakable analogy in features and contour to Mary's prison pic- tures ; but the nostrils are sharpened and a little elevated. A solemn stillness appears to have composed the marbled brow, placid lips and sealed eyelids, and the grey pallor of death supersedes the beautiful tints of her natural com- plexion. One pearl appears among the dark locks which have been replaced by the artist, and the brow is adorned with a radiated diadem — the martyr's crown. The delinea- tion of the neck is considered anatomically true, and is a terrifically fine work of art ; yet it is impossible to contem- plate the ineffable composure of the features, ^ La Morte de la Royne d'Escosse— Teulet. ^ This inestimable painting was presented to Sir Walter Scott by a Prussian nobleman. 494 MARY STUART. " And mark the mild angelic air The rapture of repose that's there/' without feeling that it verifies its own authenticity, by bring- ing Mary Stuart's countenance before us at the blessed season " when the wicked had ceased from troubling, and the weary was at rest/' ^ The portrait in the Scotch College at Blairs, from which the frontispiece of this volume has been engraved, by cour- teous permission of the E.. C. Bishop of Aberdeen, Dr Kyle, and the Reverend Principal Macpherson, appears to have been sketched from Mary on the scaffold, in the hall at Fotheringhay ; if so, it must have been by the same power- ful artist, Amyas Cawood, who has delineated the severed head. It represents Mary in precisely the costume de- scribed as worn by her on that occasion, holding her breviary in one hand and the crucifix in the other. In the back- ground, to the right below the crucifix, appears a vignette of the execution in miniature, which, from the accurateness of the portraits and costumes, must have been sketched from the life.2 There are the Earl Marshal, Shrewsbury, with his baton raised, the Earl of Kent, the High Sheriff with his wand, Beale holding the warrant carelessly folded together with the great seal pendant from it, the Dean of Peterborough with his book, and the two executioners in their black gaberdines and white aprons ; last the royal victim, kneeling with her eyes bandaged and her head on the block, the blood pouring over her shoulder from the ghastly wound inflicted by the unskilful executioner, who, with uplifted axe grasped in both hands, is preparing to ^ A more painful delineation of the severed head of Mary Stuart is in the Museum of the United Service Club, probably, from its appearance, an authentic contemporary painting also, but representing her before her features had been composed from the death agony, or the broad eyelids, which partially reveal the full dark orbs below, closed by pious hands. The lips are apart, and show two of the small even upper teeth. A pearl earring, partly torn from one of the ears, is stained with blood. It is a fine painting, but in bad condition. On the back is the following notation : The head of Mary Queen of Scots the day after her execution — Lieut.-Col. Birch. " The portrait in Her Majesty's collection at Windsor is a coarse copy made for George III. from this exquisite painting, to which few modern artists could do justice ; assuredly no engraving can. MARY STUART. 495 strike her again. Andrew Melville stands aloof in an attitude eloquently expressive of grief. On the other side of the Queen's figure, which is of full length and almost life-like proportions, are the whole-length portraits, in miniature, of her two weeping attendants in black dresses and white coifs ; over the head of one is written " Jean Kennethye ; " over the other " Elizabeth Courle." This curious painting was presented by the latter to the Scotch College at Douay, where it remained till after the French Eevolution, and was saved, with difficulty, from the destruc- tive fury of the Jacobins by being hastily cut out of the frame, wound round a wooden roller, packed in a secure outer envelope, and secreted in one of the nooks in the wide chimney of the refectory, where, as the brethren judged, there would be cold cheer for a while. There it remained from the year 1794 till 1815, nineteen years. The few surviving members of the fraternity searched for their treasure, and found it uninjured; it was, after the dissolution of the College at Douay, removed to the Scotch College at Paris, and finally to Blairs, near Aberdeen, where it remains to convince those who are fortunate enough to obtain leave to peruse it, that the beauty of Mary Stuart was no poetic fiction, since even in the closing scene of her weary pilgrimage her noble features retained their classical and majestic outline ; her expression, its high and intellectual character mingled with placid sweetness; and the contour of her face, its regular oval. The instant the axe had fallen on Mary, Lord Talbot rode off, at fiery speed, to Greenwich, to communicate the news officially to Burleigh and his colleagues, who were anx- iously awaiting it. The Premier forbade him to announce it to their royal mistress, saying, " it was better time should be allowed to unfold it to her by degrees."' Lin- gard regards this circumstance as indicating a collusion between the hoary statesman and Elizabeth ; but it is, on the contrary, a strong corroboration of her assertion " that she was neither consenting to, nor cognisant of, the barbarous deed that had been perpetrated on her un- 496 MAEY STUART. fortunate kinswoman at Fotheringhay." The ringing of the bells, the blaze of bonfires, and illuminations, led her to inquire the cause of these demonstrations of popular rejoicing. One of her ladies told her, " the death of the Queen of Scots." Mary had long been in a state of health so infirm that no surprise need have been excited if this event had occurred any day ; and it is possible that Eliza- beth might, if really innocent, have supposed that it had happened from natural causes. The next morning she had heard the truth, and sending for Hatton, expressed the most vehement indignation, wept bitterly, and launched into furious threats of vengeance " against the men who had usurped her authority by putting the Queen of Scots to death without her knowledge or consent." Hatton in- formed his colleagues ; all were in consternation, and ad- vised their tool Davison, who had undertaken to stand in the gap, to keep out of her sight till her anger should have subsided. Davison took to his chamber, under pre- tence of indisposition ; but Elizabeth ordered him to be arrested and sent to the Tower. A deprecatory memorial was presented to her by Lord Buckhurst, in the name of her ministers, representing " that the committal of Davi- son would give rise to reports that the Queen of Scots was actually murdered ; that the Lords of her Council would be thought murderers, and their whole proceedings from first to last esteemed no better than an unlawful course tending unto murder." 2 But Elizabeth was inexorable — mulcted Davison in a fine of d£*10,000, and forbade Burleigh and Walsingham her presence, vehemently charging them with the whole and sole guilt of the death of the Queen of Scots, without her knowledge and against her will. If Harrison s statement that he was employed by Wal- singham to forge her signature to the warrant be founded on fact,^ it explains all that has hitherto been regarded as problematical in Elizabeth's conduct, and removes the charge of hypocrisy which her greatest eulogists have found 1 Lingard. 2 MS. Life of the Earl of Shrewsbury — Davison's Life. 3 Cot. MS. unpublished, Calig. C. ix. 458-59, and refer to p. 466 of the present volume. MARY STUART. 497 it impossible either to deny or excuse, however they might apologise for her putting Mary to death under the plea of state policy or the interests of the Reformed Church. But if she did not sign the warrant — and we have only Davison's tes- timony in proof she did — then was her ignorance of Mary's death unaffected, her tears and lamentations real, and her indignation against her ministers no grimace. Why, then, it may be asked, did she not proclaim the act of in- tolerable treason of which they had been guilty, in pre- suming to forge her signature, and inflict condign pun- ishment on the offenders ? To answer this question satis- factorily, it is necessary also to inquire whether it w^ere in her power to do so ? She was a despotic Sovereign, it is true ; but these were the men by whom her despotism was exercised, and had been ever since she ascended the throne. She was a woman of great abilities, strong passions and masculine spirit ; but still a woman, and subservient to a combination of wills too powerful for her to resist. It would have been easier for them to have placed the son of Mary Stuart on her throne than for her to have executed justice on them. Neither might it have been prudent for her to provoke the revelations of men who had foreknow- ledge of the plot for Eiccio's assassination and Mary's arrest and projected deposition in March 1566, who could unveil the black mystery of Darnley's death, were cognisant of BothwelFs projected, seizure of Mary's person, and aware that the Scotch drafts of the pretended love-letters to Both- well had been submitted to Elizabeth's consideration by Moray's secretary, John Wood,^ three months before they were mentioned by him and Morton, for the first time, to a select sederunt of their colleagues in Council,^ and six before they were exhibited in their French dress by Lethington, Makgill, Buchanan, and Wood, to the Commissioners at York.^ Could they not also have disclosed the evidences of tlie three successive secret treaties with Moray, Lennox, and Mar, for Mary's murder by her rebel subjects, under colour 1 June 8, 1568. « September 16, 1568. ^ See Lives of the Queens of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 224. VOL. VII. 2 1 498 MARY STUART. of a pretended judicial process ? Clearly Elizabeth was in no position to bring her offending ministers to justice for for- gery and murder. She made a vigorous effort to rid herself of Burleigh and Walsingham ; but they were too strong for her, and she was forced to content herself by punishing Davison, and proclaiming to the world that they, not she, were the authors of the death of the Queen of Scots. Let us hope, for the sake of womanhood, she spoke the truth.^ Elizabeth wrote the most humble of apologies to Mary's son, expressing her sorrow for " the miserable accident," as she termed the decapitation of his royal mother — telling him withal " that she had sent her near kinsman, Sir Kobert Carey, to explain the truth to him." But James would not receive her envoy. Such, indeed, was the access of national indignation that pervaded all classes, save the unpatriotic English faction, that James sent an express to warn Carey not to advance beyond Berwick, " as it would be impossible to protect his life from the fury of the people if he ventured to enter Scotland." ^ James ordered the deepest mourning to be worn for his royal mother — a requisition with which all his nobles complied except the Earl of Sinclair, who ap- peared before him clad in steel. The King looked displeased, frowned, and inquired " if he had not seen the order for a general mourning?" "Yes," said the high-spirited represen- tative of the lordly line of high St Clair, making his armour clash till it rang through the hall — " this is the proper mourning for the Queen of Scotland."^ ' " Without doubt, the Queen [Elizabeth] has been greatly abused in this business of the poor Queen of Scotland," writes a secret correspondent in the English Court to Chateauneuf. " The whole game has been played by three persons only — the Secretary Davison, the Grand Treasurer Burleigh, and Walsingham. They have been the perpetrators of this cruel murder. The Grand Treasurer, fearing Davison should confess something of him, has come to London on purpose to retard the process, thinking that, by delay, the Queen may be induced to let Davison get off, which would be good for the two others ; but the Queen is determined to have justice. The Grand Treasurer is in great alarm, and trembles excessively." The writer of this letter is supposed by Labanoff to be Lady Shrewsbury's son- in-law, Sir Henry Pierrepont, the father of Mary's goddaughter and some- time favourite, Bess Pierrepont— a man very likely to know the real state of the case. 2 Autobiography of Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth. 2 Family anecdote by Miss Catherine Sinclair, in her animated work, " The Hill and the Valley." MABY STUAET. 499 It is not, however, for kings to indulge their private feel- ings and personal resentments at the expense of their sub- jects. James was unprovided with the means of levy- ing war against his powerful neighbour, and his ministers were entirely under the control of the English faction ; so, after maintaining a resentful attitude for a time, he sent Sir George Home and the Master of Melville to receive Elizabeth's letters and explanation from her cousin Carey Whatever the latter was, it appears to have been regarded by Mary's son as an exoneration, for he wrote sternly but candidly in reply — " Whereas, by your letter and bearer, Robert Carey, your servant and ambassador, ye purge yourself of your unhappy part ; as on the one part considering your rank and sex, consanguinity, and professed good-will to the defunct, together with your many and solemn attestations of your in- nocence, I dare not wrong you so far as not to judge honourably of your unspotted part therein." * Early in March 1587, the obsequies of Mary Stuart, their beloved Queen Dowager, were solemnised by the King, nobles, and people of France with great pomp, in the cathe- dral of Notre Dame at Paris ; and a funeral oration was pronounced in honour of her memory by Renauld de Beaulne, Archbishop of Bourges, and Patriarch of Acqui- taine. He commenced his discourse with an impressive allusion to the visible tokens of grief which he observed on the countenances of his crowded congregation. " When I see your faces thus bathed in tears, and hear your sighs and sobs break the stillness, in which you are prepared to listen to me, I doubt within myself whether I ought not rather to keep silence than to speak." Speak, however, he did, and in a strain of impassioned eloquence, of her early youth, which had been passed among them — of her endow- ments, whereof he said "it was not easy to find so many centred in one human being, for, besides that marvellous beauty which attracted the eyes of all the world, she had a disposition so excellent, an understanding so clear and 1 Autobiography of Sir Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth. * Letters of Queen Elizabeth and James VI. of Scotland, edited by J. Bruce, Esq. — Camden Society's Works. 500 MARY STUART. judgment so sound, as could be rarely paralleled by a per- son of her sex and age ; that she possessed great courage, but it was tempered by feminine gentleness and sweetness. Many of us" continued he, " saw in the place where we are now assembled to deplore her, this Queen on the day of her bridal, arrayed in her regal trappings, so covered with jewels that the sun himself shone not more brightly, so beautiful, so charming withal, as never woman was.^ These walls were then hung with cloth of gold and precious tapes- try ; every space was filled with thrones and seats, crowded with princes and princesses, who came from all parts to share in the rejoicings. The palace was overflowing with magnificence, splendid f^tes and masks ; the streets with jousts and tournays. In short it seemed as if our age had succeeded that day in surpassing the pomp of all past cen- turies combined. A little time has flowed on, and it is all vanished like a cloud. Who could have believed that such a change could have befallen her who appeared then so triumphant, and that we should have seen her a prisoner who had restored prisoners to liberty ; in poverty, who was accustomed to give so liberally to others ; treated with contumely by those on whom she had conferred honours ; and finally, the axe of a base executioner mangling the form of her who was doubly a Queen ; that form which honoured the nuptial bed of a sovereign of France, falling dishonoured on a scaffold, and that beauty which had been one of the wonders of the world, faded in a dreary prison, and at last effaced by a piteous death ? This place, where she was surrounded with splendour, is now hung with black for her. Instead of nuptial torches we have funereal tapers ; ^ The reader may perceive that this was the original whence Burke drew his celebrated speech on the calamities and vicissitudes that had befallen Marie Antoinette. It is an interesting fact, that among the relics of the captivity of Louis XVI. and his family, preserved in the well-known iron chest in the Hotel de Soubise at Paris, is a yellow faded sheet of MS. music, with the lines ruled much aslant, together with the commencement of a trans- lation into French, by Madame Elizabeth, of the pathetic old ballad, Queen Mary's Lament — " I sigh and lament me in vain ; " — testifying how deeply that admirable Princess, of whom the world was not worthy, had dwelt on the calamities and sufferings of her royal ancestress, Mary Stuart, and identified her cas,e with their own. MARY STUAET. 501 in the place of songs of joy, we have sighs and groans ; for clarions and hautboys, the tolling of the sad and dis- mal bell. Oh, God ! what a change ! Oh, vanity of human greatness ! shall we never be convinced of your deceitful- ness ? " After rendering due testimony to her patience, courage, and piety, he concluded in these words : " It appears as if God had chosen to render her virtues more glorious by her afflictions. Others leave to their successors the care of building them fair and splendid monuments to escape for- getfulness ; but this Queen in dying exonerates you from that care, having by her death itself imprinted on the minds of men an image of constancy which should not be for this age alone, but for time and eternity (if to this low world of ours can pertain anything eternal), which shall preserve or keep alive the recollection of her admirable virtues and her courage. The marble, the bronze, the iron, are decomposed by the air or corroded by rust, but the remembrance of her bright example shall live eter- nally/' ^ After Mary's body had remained for nearly six months apparently forgotten by her murderers, Elizabeth considered it necessary,^ in consequence of the urgent and pathetic memorials of the afflicted servants'* of that unfortunate Princess, and the remonstrances of her royal son, to accord it not only Christian burial, but a pompous state-funeral. This she appointed to take place in Peterborough Cathedral on the 1st of August, and sent Mr Fortescue, Master of the Grand Wardrobe, Garter King-of-Arms, and other officials, three or four days before to make the necessary arrange- ments for the solemnity, with the Bishop of Peterborough and the dean.^ The place selected for her interment was at the entrance of the choir from the south aisle, near the tomb of John, the last Abbot and first Bishop of Peter- borough, opposite that of Katharine of Arragon, the first consort of her uncle Henry VIII. The grave was dug by the centogenarian sexton, Scarlett, who had prepared the 1 Jebb, vol. ii. ^ State-Paper Office MSS. 8 Gunton's Hist, of Peterborough. ^ Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. 502 MARY STUART. last resting-place for that ill-treated Queen, whose hearse of black and silver was then standing. Heralds and officers of the wardrobe were also sent to Fotheringhay Castle, to make suitable arrangements for the removal of the royal remains, and to prepare mourning for all the servants of the murdered Queen — those who had been detained at Chartley having all been brought to Fotheringhay, but, like the others, strictly incarcerated ever since their arrival. As all were to attend the funeral, Queen Elizabeth sent as much black cloth as was necessary to make mourning-cloaks for Sir Andrew Melville andM.Bourgoigne, and gowns for the ladies and women. Moreover, as their head-dresses were not of the approved fashion for mourning in England, her Majesty considerately sent a milliner on purpose to make others, in the orthodox mode, proper to be worn at the funeral, and to be theirs afterwards. But these true mourners, caring nothing for outward show, coldlv but firmly dechned availing themselves of these gifts and atten- tions, declaring " they would wear their own dresses, such as they had got made for mourning immediately after the loss of their beloved Queen and mistress." ^ On the evening of Sunday, July 30th, Garter King-of- Arms arrived at Potheringhay Castle, with five other heralds and forty horsemen, to receive and escort the remains of Mary Stuart to Peterborough Cathedral, having brought with them a royal funereal car for that purpose, covered with black velvet, richly set forth with escutcheons of the arms of Scotland and little pennons round about it, drawn by four horses caparisoned in like manner. The body being enclosed in lead, within an outer coffin, was brought down, and reverently put into the carriage that had been prepared for it ; the heralds having assumed their coats and tabards, brought the same forth of the castle bareheaded, by torch-light, about ten o'clock at night, fol- lowed by all her sorrowful servants, both men and women.2 The procession arrived at Peterborough between one and two o'clock, on the morning of Monday July 31st, and was ' La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. * Manner of the solemnity of the Scottish Queen's funeral. MARY STUART. 503 received most reverently at the minster door by the bishop, dean, and chapter, and Clarencieux King-of-Arms, where, in the presence of her faithful Scotch attendants, it was laid in the vault prepared for it on the south side the choir, without either singing or saying, the grand ceremonial be- ing appointed for Tuesday August 1. ^ The reason of depositing the royal body previously in the vault was, because it was too heavy to be carried in the procession, weighing, with the lead and outer coffin, nearly nine hundredweight ; besides, in consequence of the defec- tive manner in which the embalming had been performed, decomposition of a distressing nature had taken place, and it was feared the solder might burst. On Monday in the afternoon arrived the state company of ceremonial mourners from London, escorting the Countess of Bedford, who was to represent Queen Elizabeth in the mockery of acting as chief mourner to the royal victim,^ which of course must be regarded as a public acknow- ledgment that Mary was innocent of all the crimes laid to her charge, especially that of practising against the life of Elizabeth. A sumptuous feast was provided for the state mourners in the great banquetlng-hall in the bishop's palace, which was hung with black, and a seat beneath a purple velvet canopy, with the arms of England, prepared for Queen Elizabeth's proxy. The heralds brought Sir Andrew Melville and Bourgolgne into this room to show them the preparations, explained how they intended to proceed, and asked " if they thought there was anything required altering or amending, as it was her Majesty's wish that everything was to be done as honourably as possible, and no expense to be spared." Answer was very coldly made by the true mourners, " It is not for us to find fault, the whole being dependent on the pleasure of the Queen your mistress, who is doubtless dis- creet enough to make proper arrangements." ^ The next morning, Tuesday, August 1st, the solemnities ' " A Remembrance and Order of the Burial of Mary Queen of Scots," Archseologia, vol. i. p. 355, 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse, 504 MARY STUART. commenced as early as eight o'clock. The Countess of Bedford, Queen Elizabeth's proxy, as chief mourner, was attended upon in her chamber by all the lords, ladies, and the Bishops of Peterborough and Lincoln, brought into the presence-chamber in the bishop's palace, and placed under the cloth of estate, while the staves of office were delivered to the great officers. Lord Chamberlain, &c,, and the procession formed. Then, supported by the Earls of Rutland and Lincoln, and her train borne by Lady St John, she took her way into the great hall, where a repre- sentation of Queen Mary's corpse lay in state on a royal bier, and was reverently followed into the church by the said proxy of the English Queen, as chief mourner, and attended by a great number of English peers, peeresses, knights, ladies, and gentlemen, in mourning. All Mary's servants, both male and female, walked in the procession, according to their degree — among them her almoner, De Prdan, bearing a large silver cross.^ The representation of the corpse being received without the cathedral gate by the bishops and clergy, the accustomed anthems were sung, and it was borne in solemn procession into the choir, and set down within the royal hearse which had been prepared for it over the grave where the remains of the murdered Queen had been silently deposited by torch-light at two o'clock on the Monday morning. The hearse was twenty feet square and twenty-seven feet high, richly adorned with escutcheons and fringe of gold. On the coffin, which was covered with a pall of black velvet, lay a close crown of gold, set with stones, resting on a purple-velvet cushion, fringed and tasselled with gold. When every one was placed according to their degree, the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Lincoln, from the 5th, 6th, and 7th verses of the 39th Psalm, " Lord, let me know mine end," &c.^ All the Scotch Queen's train, both men and women, with the exception of Sir Andrew Melville and the two Mowbrays, who were members of the Eeformed Church, ^ Mort de la Eoyne d'Escosse. Archseologia, i. 355. MARY STUART. 505 departed, and would not tarry the sermon or prayers, Bour- goigne setting the example of going out, and the rest following him. This greatly offended the English portion of the congregation, some of whom called after them, and wanted to force them to remain. Two of the heralds, after the sermon was over, went in search of them, and finding them walking in the cloisters, invited them to return, telling them ' they had nothing to fear, for the preaching was over, and the offering was going to be made ; ' but they replied, ' they were all Catholics, and would neither assist at their offerings nor their prayers, neither did they wish to witness their ceremonies." ^ In the prayer, the Bishop of Lincoln, returning thanks for such as were translated out of this vale of miserv, used these words : " Let us give thanks for the happy dissolution of the high and mighty Princess, Mary, late Queen of Scotland and Dowager of France, of whose life and death at this time I have not much to say, because I was not acquainted with the one, neither was I present at the other. I will not enter into judgment further, but because it hath been signified unto me that she trusted to be saved by the blood of Christ, we must hope well of her salvation : For, as Father Luther was wont to say, many one that liveth a Papist dieth a Protestant." In the discourse of his text, he only dealt with general doctrines of the vanity of all flesh. Then the two Bishops and the Dean came to the vault and read the funeral-service over the body, at the conclu- sion of which every officer brake his staff over his head, and threw the pieces into the vault upon the coffin, in which ceremony Mary's officers consented to perform their part. The procession returned in the same order to the bishop's palace. The attendants of the murdered Queen were invited to partake of the magnificent banquet which was provided for all the mourners ; but they declined doing so, observing " that their hearts were too sad to feast, and they preferred being by themselves, as ^ La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse, 506 MARY STUART. they could not restrain their tears from falling/' They were indulged in their wish, and dined in a separate room altogether, no Englishman being present but those who served them, bringing them the choicest of dainties and the best of wines, kindly pressing them to partake of their good cheer ; but notwithstanding all these courtesies, they gave them to understand they took no pleasure in their banquet, and wept more abundantly every time they were pressed to eat." ^ The indignant spirit in which Mary's attendants received, or rather, we should say, repelled, the proffered courtesies of the officials of the English Sovereign, was probably the reason why they were sent back to Eotheringhay Castle in- stead of being liberated after the pompous funeral of their murdered mistress. They were cruelly detained there nearly three months in the most rigorous captivity, barely supplied with the necessaries of life, and denied the privi- leges of air and exercise. The particulars of their case being at last made known to Mary's son, James VI., he accredited Sir John Mowbray, Baron of Barnbougal, the father of Barbara and Gillies, as his envoy to the Court of England, with instructions to remonstrate in his name with Queen Elizabeth on the treatment of his unfortunate mother s servants, and to demand their release. This being granted, the French returned to France, and the Scotch to Scotland. Gillies Mowbray and Mrs Curie joined their father in London, together with Elizabeth Curie. When Mary's unlucky secretary, Gilbert Curie, at last obtained his liberty, he, with his wife Barbara, their infant daughter Mary, and his sister Elizabeth, embarked for Antwerp, where they passed the residue of their days. EHzabeth Curie took with her the noble whole-length painting of Queen Mary on the scaffold, which she presented to the Scotch College at Douay, of which Mary had been a great patroness ; together with the portrait of that unfortunate princess, which hangs over her tomb and that of her sister-in-law Bar- ^ La Mort de la Royne d'Escosse. MARY STUART. 507 bara, Curie's widow, in the small Scotch Church dedicated to St Andrew at Antwerp. She survived her royal mistress twenty-four years, Barbara twenty-nine. Their monument is of black and white marble, and the tablet containing their epitaph is supported between the statues of St Elizabeth and St Barbara. The portrait of their beloved royal mistress which surmounts it, is placed between two angels, one in the act of recording, the other of proclaiming, her virtues and her wrongs. Beneath is a Latin inscription to this effect : — " Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and France, mother of James, King of Britain, sought in 1568 an asylum in England ; and, through the perfidy of Queen Elizabeth, her kinswoman, and the hati-ed of a heretic Parlia- ment, after a captivity of nineteen years, was beheaded in the cause of her religion, and suffered the death of a martyr in the year 1587, the 45th year of her life and reign." The epitaph of Barbara Mowbray and Elizabeth Curie is peculiarly interesting : — " Traveller, thou seest here a tomb where rest, awaiting the awaking of the just, two noble British ladies. One of these, Barbara Mowbray, daughter of the Baron John Mowbray, was lady of honour to the illustri- ous Marie Stuart, Queen of Scotland, and was married to Gilbert Curie, who during more than twenty years was secretary to that Queen. The husband and wife lived together four-and-twenty years in the most perfect union, and had eight children, of whom six preceded them to heaven. The two who survive were brought up in the paths of learning. James, the eldest, entered the society of Jesuits at Madrid ; Hippolite, the second, is an associate of the same company in Belgic Gaul. This last, weeping the best of mothers, who passed from this life to the life eternal the 31st of July 1616, at the age of fifty-seven years, has raised this monument to her. The other, Elizabeth Curie, descended from the same honourable house of Curie, was likewise lady of honour to Mary Stuart, and after having been, during eight years, her faithful companion in her prison, was present at the immolation of that Queen, and received her last kiss." Mary*'s other devoted Scotch maid of honour, Jane Ken- nedy, whom Schiller, in his beautiful but most unhistorical tragedy of Marie Stuart, has transformed into her nurse, was not too old to love and be beloved, and on their release from prison and return to their native land, became the wife of her faithful associate in the unprofitable service of 508 MARY STUAET. their hapless Queen, Sir Andrew Melville of Garvockj to whom she had been long engaged. King James, in order to testify his gratitude for her attachment to his royal mother, and his sense of her vir- tuous and discreet behaviour, appointed her to meet and attend his bride, Anne of Denmark, to Scotland, in the year 1589. Jane was living in Fifeshire with her husband, Sir Andrew Melville, when the summons for her to proceed on this honourable appointment reached her. Willing to use due diligence in rendering obedience to her Sovereign's be- hest, she attempted to cross the rough waters of the Firth from Burntisland to Leith in an open boat, which being run down by a larger vessel in the storm, she, and all her com- pany, were drowned. Some of the unfortunate creatures who were accused of raising the tempests by witchcraft, which long opposed the arrival of James's royal bride, con- fessed themselves guilty of having contrived the unlucky accident which caused the death of poor Jane Kennedy.^ A few days after Mary's funeral, a tablet was found fixed on the hearse over her grave, with an inscription in Latin verse to this effect : — " Mary, Queen of Scots, daughter of a King, widow of the King of France, cousin and next heir to the Queen of England, adorned with royal virtues and a royal mind, the ornament of our age, and truly royal light, is, by barbar- ous and tyrannical cruelty, extinguished. A strange and unusual kind of monument this is, wherein the living are included with the dead ; for with the sacred ashes of this blessed Mary, know that the majesty of all kings and princes lieth here violated and prostrate. Traveller, I say no more." This tablet was of course removed as soon as it was ob- served. Mary Stuart's remains, after reposing five-and-twenty years in Peterborough Cathedral, were exhumed by the order of her son James, and reinterred with reverential 1 Sir James Melville's Memoirs. Note to Spottiswoode by Mark Na- pier, Esq. MARY STUART. 609 care in Westminster Abbey, in the centre of the south aisle of Henry the Seventh's chapel. The stately monument he erected for her there bears witness both of his respect for the memory of his unfortunate mother, and of his own taste in the fine arts. Mary's recumbent statue, reposing beneath a regal canopy, with her head resting on tasselled cushions, and the Scottish Hon at her feet, is a glorious specimen of the sculpture of the sixteenth century, as well as a genuine and most satisfactory likeness of the beautiful and unfortunate mother of our royal line, cor- responding In features, contour, and expression with her best-authenticated portraits. Nothing can be more grace- ful and majestic than the form, or more lovely and intel- lectual than the face, which indicates every noble and bene- volent quality that could adorn the character of queen or woman — such, indeed, as a careful Investigation of her personal history from authentic and documentary sources of information, proves that she possessed. "As long," observes her eloquent and pure-minded French biographer, Caussin, " as there shall be eyes or tears in this vale of misery, there shall be tears distilled on those royal ashes, and the piety of the living shall never cease with full hands to strew lilies, violets, and roses on her tomb." END OF VOL. VII. PKIKTED BY WILLIAJH BIACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBUKOII. NEWTON CAMPUS DIVISION OF BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARi CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. . •vc-Q o 1B50 v*7 ♦ - r.+^ the «ueens of Lives ot tnt. ., - ^ Scotland and Eniiii-^ Boston College Libraries Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167